{"id":943928,"date":"2026-10-28T12:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T12:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943928\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T12:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T12:26:12","slug":"australians-forced-to-pay-5-billion-more-for-petrol-as-iran-war-reveals-nations-vulnerability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943928\/","title":{"rendered":"Australians forced to pay $5 billion more for petrol as Iran war reveals nation\u2019s vulnerability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australians <\/a>have been forced to pay $5 billion more at the bowser since the start of the war in Iran, as a new report exposed just how vulnerable the country is to global shocks. <\/p>\n

The Climate Council found motorists were hit with added costs due to the heavy reliance on diesel and fuel imports in its \u201ccrude awakening\u201d report published on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\"Customers<\/p>\n

Australians have been forced to pay $5 billion more at the bowser since the start of the war in Iran.\u00a0Kate Geraghty<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inflationary pressure and the pressure that average mums and dads are feeling at the petrol station, at the grocery store, is linked to this exposure we have to fuel insecurity,\u201d Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie said. <\/p>\n

Australia is the world\u2019s largest seaborne importer of diesel and relies on partner countries for 90 per cent of the usage.<\/p>\n

The country also imports 80 per cent of its jet fuel and 68 per cent of its petrol. <\/p>\n

Following the United States<\/a> and Israel <\/a>strikes on Iran<\/a> on February 28, which disrupted much of the world\u2019s fuel supply, Australia picked up the world\u2019s biggest diesel tab in $9 billion or $324 per person. <\/p>\n

It has sent domestic inflation soaring from 3.7 per cent in February to 4.6 per cent in March.<\/p>\n

While inflation has cooled slightly, it remains above target at 4 per cent, according to the latest monthly data. <\/p>\n

The Reserve Bank of Australia<\/a> has increased interest rates four times this year, partly due to the higher-than-normal oil prices, and is expected to do so again at the next meeting in November. <\/p>\n

\u201cInflation is too high and has been driven by domestic capacity pressures. The inflation impulse from the Middle East conflict is in addition to this,\u201d central bank Governor Michele Bullock said. <\/p>\n

According to Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) expert Kevin Morrison, Australians could be hit with worse cost of living pressures if the global conflict continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen the globe respond to this crisis by releasing all the stockpiles they have and so we\u2019ve got those buffers have really got much thinner,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo we don\u2019t really have that shock absorber and so that\u2019s why we could be subject to more price volatility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s exposure to global oil shocks is not new and has increased over the past 25 years since domestic oil production has dwindled, according to the IEEFA. <\/p>\n

Crude oil production started in the 1960s and peaked at 563,000 barrels a day in the 2000-01 financial year with eight refineries behind 98 per cent of the petrol needs. <\/p>\n

By 2025, production slumped to about 10 per cent of that peak, oil imports had soared by 240 per cent since 2012 and only two refineries remained in operation. <\/p>\n

Morrison said Australia is therefore never \u201centirely out of the woods\u201d when it comes to global oil shocks, as he called for the government to reduce reliance on imports. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s best that Australia takes more control over its energy supply,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey say we\u2019ve got lots of coal, lots of gas, lots of renewable energy potential. Whereas oil is the weak link.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz has been severely disrupted since the outbreak of the war.\u00a0AP<\/p>\n

The Climate Council\u2019s report suggests the way to help ease the reliance on fuel is to increase the number of electric and hybrid vehicles after those drivers saved $1.7 billion and 17.4 million litres in fuel since the war began.<\/p>\n

Motorists have increasingly taken up EVs, with the latest data from the Electric Vehicle Council finding that they make up 29 per cent of all car sales and one is sold every 100 seconds, but trucks and freight have lagged. <\/p>\n

Electric trucks accounted for only 0.7 per cent of truck sales, according to the report, compared to 20 per cent in China<\/a>, 7 per cent in Germany and 2 per cent in the United Kingdom<\/a>. <\/p>\n

McKenzie said the government\u2019s focus should turn to increasing the number of electric heavy vehicles and trucks for short- to medium-haul routes. <\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of the world\u2019s oil at its source is dependent on the Middle East, and we have just seen in the last few years, but since the 1970s, increasing volatility of foreign oil supply,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has been focused on the immediate crisis, but the issue is a longer-term one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat if we don\u2019t deal with the more medium-term in electrifying our transport system, if we remain just as heavily reliant on diesel and petrol, that means that our economy is just very exposed to foreign wars and foreign volatility.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australians have been forced to pay $5 billion more at the bowser since the start of the war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-943928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}