Petrol Prices on the Rise
Russia has launched a shocking attack on Ukraine, a European democracy of 44 million people, bombarding its cities and closing in on the capital, Kyiv, causing a mass evacuation of refugees. Its attack has resulted in Western nations imposing economic and trading sanctions on Russia.
This has resulted in the daily fuel rise in the UK. The war has caused a massive effect on the global oil and fuel markets, including a general increase in demand.
Long queues at petrol pumps remain widespread in the United Kingdom.
The average price of a litre of petrol has hit 163.2p while diesel is 174.1p. The percentage increase is now 30.9%.
It now costs £89.00 to fill up the tank of an average family petrol car; up from £67.97 in March 2021, while an average diesel car costs £95.39, compared to £69.67 this time last year.
Nathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at financial services company Investec said the public ‘‘need to get ready for what could be continued increases in fuel prices’’.
Petrol could rise to £2.50 a litre, while diesel could hit £3 experts told MPs on Monday.
While the UK gets an adequate amount of crude oil and gas from Russia, 18% of diesel imports came directly from Russia in 2020.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected petrol and diesel costs worldwide.
Russia is the third-largest oil exporter and some other western countries i.e. the US and Canada have decided to discontinue imports of Russian oil from the country in response to Russia’s exertion. This means that the demand for oil from other producers has increased, which has resulted in increased prices.
Sen said the extra cost to UK households could amount to £60bn a year if gas holds out at its peak level. The chancellor could alleviate this by initiating a grant of up to £500 for lower-income households according to Prof Jagjit Chadha, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, in this month’s spring statement.
The prices of petrol have been a wider issue in terms of Brexit. Without a doubt, some of the shortage of drivers has been caused by Brexit and the pandemic.
Kepler's Wright told Al Jazeera ‘Drivers from Eastern Europe, in particular, left the UK in the last two years. The UK government has made it harder for drivers from outside the UK to be employed here
‘If you impose a national economic shock of raising trade barriers significantly - including to movement of people - on top of global supply-chain strains, then that's always likely to lead to problems,’’ said trade expert David Henig, the UK trade policy director of the European Centre For International Political Economy.
Petrol prices have also been affected by the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound because crude oil is traded in dollars. The UK consumers were already experiencing the increases in costs of petrol because of the demand for energy and its price collapsed at the start of the Covid pandemic.