{"id":315680,"date":"2026-03-06T08:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/315680\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T08:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T08:20:08","slug":"petrol-prices-increase-by-as-much-as-14-cents-in-first-week-of-middle-east-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/315680\/","title":{"rendered":"Petrol prices increase by as much as 14 cents in first week of Middle East conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

At BP Wanaka, petrol hit $2.90 this week.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the price of 95 octane petrol has already surpassed $3 in several places, including Wellington, the K\u0101piti Coast and W\u0101naka.<\/p>\n

International oil prices remain under upward pressure as traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world\u2019s crude oil is typically transported, dries up.<\/p>\n

Overnight, Brent crude oil surpassed the US$85 ($144.11) a barrel mark after sitting around US$70 last week.<\/p>\n

West Texas Intermediate was trading above US$80 a barrel for the first time since January 2025.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan told the Herald he expected to see retail prices pushing up 20-30c<\/a> over the next couple of weeks, if current international pricing was sustained.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Unleaded] 91 petrol prices have been sitting at just over $2.50 a litre, and so at US$80 a barrel you could be looking at prices pushing up to maybe just over $2.80 a litre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it went to US$100 a barrel, then you\u2019re pushing up to maybe around $3.27 a litre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video sent to the Herald yesterday of Waitomo Tinakori petrol station in Wellington showed a queue of cars spilling out into the road as drivers waited for fuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Waitomo Group chief executive Simon Parham said there had been a similar increase in demand at stations across the country, with sales increasing by 10-15% this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are filling their cars ahead of the price increase that will flow through the market over the coming weeks because of the Iran conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is those people who can are out there buying, and they\u2019ve been buying all week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Walker, Consumer NZ\u2019s communications and campaigns manager, said Gaspy was a good way to compare fuel prices quickly and easily between retailers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you have compared the prices in your local area, you can figure out whether it\u2019s worth your while travelling a bit further to make savings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At BP Wanaka, petrol hit $2.90 this week. Meanwhile, the price of 95 octane petrol has already surpassed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22256,806,138,3595,25906,8615,6150,154296,3806,5658,1888,305,78,5345,25907,10110,130,51720,5969,111,139,69,1118,22126,12937,81689,10042,1361,1961,26697,686],"class_list":{"0":"post-315680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-22256","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-by","12":"tag-cents","13":"tag-come","14":"tag-conflict","15":"tag-deepens","16":"tag-east","17":"tag-experts","18":"tag-first","19":"tag-have","20":"tag-in","21":"tag-increase","22":"tag-litre","23":"tag-middle","24":"tag-more","25":"tag-motorists","26":"tag-much","27":"tag-new-zealand","28":"tag-newzealand","29":"tag-nz","30":"tag-of","31":"tag-petrol","32":"tag-prices","33":"tag-risen","34":"tag-rises","35":"tag-that","36":"tag-this","37":"tag-warn","38":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}