The boss of one of Britain’s largest petrol station groups has warned the war in the Middle East will ‘inevitably’ filter to the price at the pumps.
Alistair Lock, chairman of the Motor Fuel Group said while prices of petrol would rise ‘in due course’ as oil prices soar, he could not predict how high they would increase or for how long.
It came as oil prices rose 6 per cent yesterday in the wake of the US and Israel launching attacks on Iran over the weekend, killing its leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran has retaliated with further attacks across the region – which yesterday prompted Qatar to halt its production of liquified natural gas and Saudi Arabia to temporarily shut parts of its Ras Tanura oil refinery.
Lock told the BBC: ‘The two main components of the price of petrol are tax and the price of oil – with the price of oil going up, that is inevitably going to feed through in due course to higher prices at the pump.’
The war in the Middle East will ‘inevitably’ filter to the price at the pumps, said Alistair Lock
But he said it ‘will depend on how long and how high those prices go, as to how high the price of fuel will be.’
Lock also said the situation had highlighted ‘the absurdity of a lot of our current energy policy, particularly with relation to energy security.’
He pointed to the UK’s reliance on importing ‘an awful lot of gas from Qatar’ and said ‘why on earth are we shutting down our own production in the North Sea, on the altar of net-zero?’
‘We all know that we need oil and gas in this country in the mix for decades to come,’ the boss of 1,200 forecourts across the UK told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Derren Nathan, head of equity research, Hargreaves Lansdown, explained: ‘Brent crude oil has consolidated recent gains breaking through the $80 barrier not seen since January 2025.
‘Until clarity emerges around the likely duration of this conflict, tension in the Middle-East is likely to overshadow forecasts of a supply-glut in the market.’
Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, also warned that if the conflict carries on, Brits are likely to ‘see higher prices by the summer’.
But he also told the Today programme: ‘For energy prices, in the short term, household prices are protected through the price cap. That will be fixed through April, May and June. So, if things resolve relatively quickly, the impact on households shouldn’t be too bad.’
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