FILL YOUR TANK: Petrol prices set to surge after attack on Saudi Arabian oil plants
Now is the time to fill up with petrol, as prices are set to surge by nearly 10 cents a litre.
This is due to fears of a worldwide fuel shortage after a drone strike on Saudi Arabian oil plants.
There were attacks on two plants on Saturday and they’ve knocked out more than half of Saudi oil crude output, or five per cent of global oil supply.
There are also fears that as many as 150 million barrels a month could be lost due to the facility’s indefinite closure.
For now, it remains unclear as to how King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will respond to the incident.
However, Peter Khoury from the NRMA told The Australian that it’s normal for Australia to feel the effects of changing global oil prices.
With petrol prices predicted to rise by up to 20c a gallon, this could mean that Australians could see a spike of 9 cents a litre.
“The sad reality is when something like this happens, more often than not it has an adverse affect on prices and we feel it here at home,” he said.
The average annual price of petrol is currently 7.0 cents per litre higher than last year, according to the report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Retail petrol prices increased significantly in the June quarter of 2019, with the five largest cities in Australian being hit the hardest.
In Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, unleaded petrol averaged at 141.2 cents per litre in the last year.
The ACCC has said that the main driver of higher petrol prices is the depreciation in the AUD-USD exchange rate.