00:00The previous UK diesel record has been broken and the RAC says attention has shifted to how far above £2
00:08a litre the average might go.
00:11In Merseyside, the effect can move quickly from the pump to the wider economy.
00:16Goods arriving through the port of Liverpool still need lorries, vans and distribution fleets to reach warehouses, factories, shops and
00:25customers.
00:25Every rise in diesel adds to the cost of those journeys.
00:30Horliers can absorb some of that but not indefinitely.
00:34Higher transport costs can be passed into contracts, wholesale prices and delivery charges, eventually reaching consumers.
00:42So even people who never buy diesel can end up paying more.
00:47For Merseyside, where port activity and logistics are central to the economy, record fuel prices are a supply chain story
00:56as much as a local motoring one.
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've also got the added complication that diesel has gone up fairly dramatically in recent times, caused by the fact
01:28that refining processes, which of course, diesel being another sub-product of oil, have been closed down as a result
01:35of the conflict.
01:35And also allows that the fact that Donald Trump has decreed that there should be a ban to exports from
01:41America or the 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 election has 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.
02:14So people sort of become sort of more careful in their use.
02:16But also, of course, in the short to medium term, no.
02:19But I think in the longer term, it will sort of underpin the sort of the transition to sort of
02:23to 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.
02:34So that's part of the problem.
02:35So all in all, it demonstrates the sort of the problem that when we're dependent upon sort of something that
02:40comes 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.
02:59So all in all, I can say, what are the kind of prices.
02:59So all in all, I can do the right, Wen, and then they don't have to pay attention.
