00:00A record UK diesel price has immediate significance here in the West Midlands where the RAC says the question is
00:07how far above £2 a litre costs could go up.
00:10This is Britain's manufacturing heartland and a major logistics hub with factories, warehouses and distribution centres relying on road freight
00:19to keep supply chains moving.
00:21More expensive diesel raises the cost of bringing components in, sending finished products out and making deliveries.
00:30Businesses can absorb some of that pressure but sustained increases eventually have to be recovered somewhere.
00:37That can mean higher transport costs, wholesale prices and service charges.
00:42The result is that people who never buy diesel can still pay for it indirectly.
00:47Across the West Midlands, record fuel costs risk feeding through manufacturing and retail into the price of everyday goods and
00:56services over time.
00:58There can be no doubt that the fact that the fuel prices are going up is primarily due to the
01:03situation caused by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Iran.
01:08Quite clearly once you have a conflict such as that and the fact that the Straits of Hormuz, where a
01:14lot of they all move through, it's bound to create a supply side problem.
01:18Now there is no end in sight so we expect them to go up.
01:22We have also got the added complication that diesel has gone up fairly dramatically in recent times.
01:27Caused by the fact that refining processes, which of course diesel being another sub-product of oil, have been closed
01:34down as a result of the conflict.
01:36And also allows that the fact that Donald Trump has decreed that there should be banned exports from America or
01:43the United States to the rest of the world.
01:45So, of course, this is making the black stuff or the derivatives of such to be quite a precious commodity.
01:52Do I see any end to this?
01:54Well, Trump has promised the end of the conflict on an occasion so we can't put much faith in that.
01:59We've got the midterms going up.
02:00Maybe, of course, that might give him cause to think if the consequences of that are he's voted out of
02:06the two houses where the elections have been held.
02:09Do I see any sort of upside?
02:10I think it's important to recognise, of course, as fuel prices go up, we use less of it so people
02:14sort of become sort of more careful in their use.
02:16But also, of course, in the short to medium term, no, but I think in the longer term, it will
02:21sort of underpin the sort of the transition to sort of to net zero.
02:25But of course, quite clearly, the last thing that the government probably would want is ever to go out and
02:28buy electric cars because, of course, we don't have the sort of capacity.
02:31And besides, of course, electricity prices are also going up. So that's part of the problem.
02:35So all in all, it's it demonstrates the sort of the problem that when we depend upon sort of something
02:40that comes from oil, we have to pay the sort of the price when it becomes in short supply.
02:44Well, there is no firm forecast for where diesel prices will peak.
02:49But while global supply remains tight, households and businesses could keep paying more through fuel, goods and services.
02:59This is not just as.
