Daily fuel price steady across Northern Ireland but it comes after fortnight of surging costs - something which AA says should not be happening
There were signs that daily home heating oil prices were holding steady in the Province today following a further week of upward pressure.
While the daily rise seemed to have stalled, with the war against Iran now ongoing for a fortnight (as of tomorrow) the News Letter here breaks down how far both pump prices and home heating oil ones are up since the start of hostilities – something which the boss of the AA says should not be happening.
The News Letter had yesterday shown how much prices had risen compared to the previous week (up by about 8% for heating oil, 6.7% for petrol, and 11.8% for diesel).
Now here we show how they stood on Thursday compared with February 26, just before the war began:
Per litre of home heating oil (when bought in bulk at 900 litres):
February 26: 59.6p
March 12: 115.3p (up 93.8% over the fortnight)
Per litre of petrol:
February 26: 124.8p
March 12: 134.5p (up 7.8% over the fortnight)
One litre of diesel:
February 26: 132.6p
March 12: 149.6p (up 12.8% over the fortnight)
All those figures are based on the official Consumer Council Province-wide weekly survey.
In addition, the News Letter independently monitors the rate offered six heating oil companies, one in each county, for 500 litres of home heating oil.
With the exception of the firm in north Armagh (which dipped by 99p) all Friday's prices were identical to the day before. Here's how they stood today:
North Down firm: £621
North Armagh firm: £567
Mid-Antrim firm: £615.83
South Tyrone firm: £599.81
Londonderry city firm: £599
West Fermanagh firm: £599
The raw ingredient of home heating oil or petrol / diesel is of course crude oil, and as of mid-afternoon on Friday the price of a barrel of Brent Crude stood at roughly $100 - down from a high of about $117 on Monday, but far above the $73-mark it was at just before the war.
Meanwhile Iran has continued to effectively clamp shut the Strait of Hormuz through which about a fifth of the world's oil shipments flow, and there were further Iranian missile and drone attacks in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Oman, and Bahrain today.
The US and Israel in turn continued to pound Iran, with Israel also bombarding its neighbour Lebanon.
Sinn Fein economy minister Caoimhe Archibald had come under fire this week as the DUP highlighted that an announcement in the chancellor’s spring statement made £81m available to Stormont to reduce energy bills.
The economy minister said “false assertions are being made in relation to this funding” and that the support “cannot make its way to consumers until the Westminster Parliament amends the Energy Prices Act 2022”.
DUP chairman of Stormont's economy committee renewed this criticism today, saying: "The Prime Minister has made clear that the money is there and that support should particularly help households relying on heating oil.
"What is missing is action from the Department for the Economy.
"This was announced in the budget in October so there has been plenty of time to develop a business case.
"The minister must stop prevaricating, submit the business case to Treasury and get this support delivered to households.
"The clock is ticking.”
Dr Archibald responded: “This statement from the chair of the economy committee reinforces his disappointing and concerning apparent lack of understanding of the support which my department is working to deliver to local electricity consumers.
“This is entirely separate to the ask I am making of the British government in relation to rising oil, petrol and gas prices as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.
“As the committee chair should know, the NI Renewables Obligation Levy support relates ONLY to electricity costs here.
“This unfortunately will not assist with rising oil prices.
“On that front, last week I wrote to the British energy minister urging that support is provided to help with the rising costs that many households and businesses are facing and I will continue to make the case for that.”
On his visit to the Province on Thursday, Sir Keir had indicated the government will "co-ordinate” with the NI Executive on ways to support consumers, saying "in the budget we did set aside money for energy bills" and that he wanted to see money come off people’s bills “as quickly as possible".
Asked for details of anything that is in the pipeline today, the Northern Ireland Office said it had "nothing further to add to what the PM said".
Sir Keir had also spoken out against people being "ripped off" by companies over the price of fuel, and today the AA president Edmund King told the News Letter: “The price of petrol and diesel at the pumps should not increase immediately after the global price of oil increases.
"Garages will have purchased the fuel at cheaper prices, and depending on the supplies, increase should not be seen at the pumps before 10 or 12 days.
“The issue at the Strait of Hormuz should not affect supplies of oil in the short or medium term as there are millions of barrels of oil in reserve across the globe.”
The Petrol Retailers Association said its executive director Gordon Balmer had been invited to take part in a Downing Street meeting on fuel prices today, but then withdrew.
This followed “several days in which ministers have suggested that forecourts may be ‘price gouging’ and ‘ripping off’ the motorist”, said the association.
Mr Balmer said: “Recently, I have heard of incidents from some of our members of retail staff being abused by members of the public, who may have been provoked by the incorrect and inflammatory language emanating from some commentators, for example, the use of the terms ‘rip offs’ and ‘profiteering’.
“Our members are working hard in difficult circumstances, making sure that motorists and businesses are getting the fuel they need, at prices that are very competitive, on razor-thin or in some cases negative margins, which means they are losing money.”