Fill ‘er up now…
The price of unleaded petrol is set to increase around Ireland this weekend on account of a disruption of supplies in the US due to Hurricane Harvey.
Unleaded petrol could rise as much as 3c or 4c over the coming days the Irish Petrol Retailers Association and the motoring association RAC warned.
Flood waters have put a number of refineries in the US offline causing a spike in the price of American and Brent crude oil.
Around a quarter of US refining capacity is out of action, while in the Gulf of Mexico, crude oil output is down 13.5%.
It’s expected that petrol prices will rise over the €1.30c per litre mark on account of the disruption to supplies.
RAC spokesman Pete Williams said: “The price of a barrel of crude oil has also increased to $52.79 dollars following the catastrophic floods in Houston.
“Americans are wedded to their petrol engines and while they have been endeavouring to become more self-sufficient through increased fracking they are now having to buy more unleaded from overseas which is reducing the availability of unleaded for the rest of the world.”
Williams expects the price of unleaded to peak above diesel for the first time in a year in the UK.
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