Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Dan Cook
All bets are off on the price of petrol in New Zealand following Israel’s attack on the world’s largest natural gasfield in Pars overnight, AA is warning.
Brent Crude prices have surged since the attack, climbing to $US109 a barrel by 9am on Monday (NZT).
AA’s transport policy adviser Terry Collins says the move from military to economic targets marks an escalation in the war that will drive up the price of oil and petrol.
Pars is the Iranian sector of the world’s largest natural gas deposit, which Iran shares with Qatar across the Gulf.
Iran has vowed to retaliate.
Collins told Morning Report after prices appeared to stabilise on Wednesday, they were once again uncertain.
Israel’s attack marked the first reported strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure in the Gulf during the US-Israeli war, a major escalation that prompted Tehran to warn its neighbours that their energy installations would be targeted “in the coming hours”.
Oil prices shot up after the attack in a conflict that has already halted shipping from the world’s most important energy-producing region and could now bring lasting damage to its infrastructure.
Before the overnight attack, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she was looking at targeted, temporary support for some households if the Middle East conflict worsened.
She said the help could be available, for example, to a cleaner needing to drive to work early in the morning when there was no public transport – a proposal welcomed by E tū union member Ayesha Paki.
She has a 30-minute drive, six days a week, to her job at Auckland Airport.
“Everything is expensive and now the petrol has affected all of us cleaners and low pay workers. We are so worried,” she said.
Willis said the government was “anticipating, and to the extent possible mitigating the impact on the New Zealand economy, including what could potentially be acute cost of living pressures for some households”.
Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said if the crisis were to continue, the price of oil could hit US$200 a barrel, which would take retail petrol prices past $4.
More to come…
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
