Iran war: Diesel price tops $3.50/litre, still outpacing 91 petrol and set to go higher
Wednesday, 1 April 2026
The average price of diesel has ticked over $3.50 a litre and looks likely to rise further based on current import costs.
Price comparison site Gaspy, which even the Commerce Commission uses as its pricing source, said it was priced at an average of just over $3.51 a litre on Wednesday morning.
That is up $1.63 from its price of $1.88/litre on February 28, just before the Middle East conflict began.
Figures published by the Australian Institute of Petroleum suggest the price importers need to pay to buy diesel from Asia has risen by $1.81 a litre over the period. That would equate to an increase of $2.08/litre at the pump, with GST on the higher import cost added.
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The ability to store incoming shipments of diesel could act as a short-term constraint on prices.
Data from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) suggests fuel importers’ diesel storage tanks could rise relatively close to capacity over the next few weeks, when incoming shipments are expected to exceed normal daily demand.
The average price of 91 was relatively stable at $3.43/litre on Wednesday, though still up 86 cents on the pre-conflict price.
Brent crude was trading about US$103 on Wednesday morning, down about US$4 from Tuesday’s close.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis said on Tuesday that fuel importers were not at that point reporting any disruptions to supply.
“We continue to press the fuel importing companies to say, ‘have you got any signs that your import orders are going to be cancelled?’. They continue to reassure us that they haven’t had those signs yet.
“What everyone is preparing for is a situation in which there is an order, it has been confirmed, and then ‘force majeure’ is declared, which is to say the contract is voided.”
Two of New Zealand’s five importers, Mobil and BP, are “vertically integrated” multinationals that own oil fields and refineries around the world including in the United States.
Asked if she was confident their parents would support them through a crisis and could supply them with fuel if needed, Willis said “that’s what they continue to assure us”.
It would take 27 days to ship fuel from US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico to New Zealand via the Panama Canal, according to a report commissioned by MBIE and released in February — versus about 17 days to ship fuel from Singapore or South Korea and 25 days from India.