{"id":388692,"date":"2026-04-08T21:04:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T21:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/388692\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T21:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T21:04:21","slug":"why-fuel-and-food-prices-could-still-be-affected-for-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/388692\/","title":{"rendered":"Why fuel and food prices could still be affected for months"},"content":{"rendered":"

So far, households under Ofgem’s energy price cap have been shielded from the spike in wholesale energy prices. <\/p>\n

The cap resets for three months in July, and we are more than halfway through the window the regulator uses to calculate the new price. Experts have been expecting a big jump at this point. <\/p>\n

The government has promised support based on household income<\/a>, but hinted this might not come until autumn.<\/p>\n

Dr Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight, says a ceasefire eases some of the immediate pressure on gas markets but “does not wipe the slate clean”.<\/p>\n

If the strait opens and stays open this will ease prices and be reflected in the July price cap, he says, but adds: “Unless prices fall well below where they were before the conflict, the wholesale price rises seen through March and early April will still feed through to bills.”<\/p>\n

Lars Jensen from Vespucci Maritime says companies will want reassurances on how vessels can transit safely, and he doesn’t believe the two-week pause will be enough to restore trust.<\/p>\n

“We should see an increase in exiting vessels,” he told Today.<\/p>\n

“We will likely also begin to see a trickle of vessels going into the Gulf, but those two will not be of the same magnitude.”<\/p>\n

Aside from movement through the strait, Lowrey says damage to gas infrastructure in Qatar will take years to rebuild, meaning supply constraints will continue. <\/p>\n

“As a result, even with a ceasefire, wholesale gas prices are likely to stay elevated for some time, limiting how far the July price cap can fall.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So far, households under Ofgem’s energy price cap have been shielded from the spike in wholesale energy prices.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-388692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}