Yahoo Finance Petrol is about to get way more expensive in the UK thanks to Hurricane Harvey
British motorists are to see the price of petrol climb sharply within days as a result of hurricane Harvey.
The huge storm that has battered Texas over recent days has sparked a 4p-per-litre rise in the cost of wholesale fuel.
That rise in world prices will be passed on to British drivers very soon, warned the Petrol Retailers’ Association.
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Brian Madderson, chairman of the PRA, said the impact of Harvey devastating the Texas coast would be felt by UK motorists as the summer season ends.
The RAC said the price petrol was on course to overtake diesel costs for the first time in a year with average prices likely rising above 121p per litre – its highest level since 2014.
Pete Williams, a spokesman for the RAC said: “The price of unleaded petrol will leapfrog diesel early next week, rising by up to 4p per litre as the impact of Storm Harvey and the shut-down of large refineries in the Gulf Coast drives up US demand for petrol imports.”
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Harvey has left a quarter of US refineries out of commission resulting in a loss of over four billion barrels a day. Crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is down 13.5%.
As a result, said the RAC, other petrol producers were directing stocks to the US – leaving the UK and other countries facing potential shortages and price rises.
“We could see unleaded rise in the coming days to around 121p a litre, with diesel likely to stay stable around 118.5p,” Williams added.
“This will be the first time unleaded has been higher than diesel since June 2016 and we expect this to be the case for some time to come – or at least until the US oil industry is able to get refineries back into operation.”
Harvey has sent fuel prices soaring the US with the average price 10 cents from the previous week to $2.45 a gallon.