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Australian motorists are facing a prolonged era of high petrol prices even if the United States were to end the war in Iran tomorrow, as fuel companies and experts warn the damage to global energy markets has been so severe that it will outlast the conflict.<\/p>\n
The cost of regular unleaded in Australia was averaging between $1.66 and $1.80 a litre earlier this year, but has surged more than 30 per cent since the war began on February 28 to hit unprecedented highs beyond $2.50 a litre.<\/p>\n
![\"Experts](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5f56901a575f8173b5ab7748d195966973448a51.jpeg\")
Experts warn it could be some time before Australians see pre-war fuel prices of less than $1.80 for regular unleaded again.Oscar Colman<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump has attempted to soothe worries about the soaring cost of living across the world by suggesting a US withdrawal from Iran would immediately deflate crude oil and fuel prices. \u201cAll I have to do is leave Iran, and we\u2019ll be doing that very soon, and they\u2019ll come tumbling down,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n
However, new warnings from the top levels of Australia\u2019s fuel industry suggest even a swift resolution to the conflict would fail to bring petrol and diesel prices back down to their pre-war ranges for some time.<\/p>\n
Scott Wyatt, chief executive of Viva Energy, one of Australia\u2019s primary fuel suppliers and owner of the Geelong oil refinery, cautioned that the recovery of global energy markets would be a slow process.<\/p>\n
Related Article \u201cThis recovery will have a long tail to it,\u201d Wyatt said, pointing to the systemic and \u201cserious disruption\u201d to international supply chains that had occurred since the outbreak of the conflict.<\/p>\n While a shift toward peace in Iran would help unclog vital shipping routes for oil and gas tankers and drag prices down from historic highs, Wyatt warned that returning crude fields and oil refineries to pre-war production levels would be a massive undertaking. \u201cIt will take some time for those supplies to fully return to our region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n At the centre of the crisis is Iran\u2019s effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted up to one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil shipments and choked off deliveries to the vast Asian oil refiners that supply the bulk of Australia\u2019s liquid-fuel imports. Drone and missile attacks on key energy infrastructure in countries around the Persian Gulf have also forced the curtailment of huge volumes of global oil capacity due to damage or precautions.<\/p>\n Even once the Strait of Hormuz reopened, shipping traffic and energy flows would take \u201cmonths\u201d to return to normal, delaying the relief for motorists at the petrol pump, an executive at another Australian fuel supplier warned.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cEven if this conflict concludes in the next 10 days, there is still going to be a bottleneck that works its way through over the next few months,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n The cost of shipping had also gone \u201cthrough the roof\u201d, the executive added, and the risk of traversing a recent war zone would keep maritime insurance premiums elevated for longer, inflicting further \u201cknock-on effects\u201d to the price of petrol and diesel.<\/p>\n MST Financial energy analyst Saul Kavonic expects it will take years to fully repair damaged Middle Eastern oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure, and for the world to refill emergency fuel stockpiles, which have been drawn down to buffer the global economy. He said there was \u201cno going back to pre-war times\u201d for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s imagine tomorrow Trump announces a comprehensive peace deal \u2013 the best-case scenario is it takes four to eight weeks to restart shuttered oil capacity, then it could take two years to refill stocks,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t unscramble this egg.\u201d<\/p>\n The magnitude of the current disruption has prompted comparisons to other major energy crises of the 20th century, including the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. However, Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP, said this year\u2019s supply hit outweighed those earlier shocks already, meaning prices may take even longer to recover.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a supply shortfall that is the biggest on record, swamping what happened in the \u201970s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you go back to the \u201970s, the first oil shock took about four months for the four-fold rise in oil prices to unfold. The second one in 1979 took over a year.\u201d<\/p>\n The warnings came as the NSW government said the state-run FuelCheck service would get an extra $2.2 million in funding to give motorists instant information about fuel prices from about 2400 service stations.<\/p>\n Daily visits to the FuelCheck app and website soared 50-fold between January and late March, the state government said. A compliance blitz of 1800 NSW service stations had already taken place with 93 infringement notices issued since the start of April.<\/p>\n With AAP.<\/p>\n The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e8fc3c805d739ba20e659140192dbae7ee067aa68854030776410c45176fa838.gif\")
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Nick Toscano<\/a> is a business reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7f47b503728da7e265c0917951384bea10b25583.png\")
Mike Foley<\/a> is the climate and energy correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-376206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}