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World oil prices hit a new record last week, so petrol and diesel in the UK will no doubt quickly follow - even though the rising cost of crude currently has more to do with the falling dollar than anything else.
World oil prices hit a new record last week, so petrol and diesel in the UK will no doubt quickly follow - even though the rising cost of crude currently has more to do with the falling dollar than anything else.
But for the time being UK motorists seem resigned to high fuel costs. Some people don't even seem to have noticed: they just carry on putting £20-worth in the tank each week as usual. Signs on motorways now regularly remind drivers to check their fuel level because so many are running out of petrol.
What is bad for motorists is worse for fleets and terrible for truckers. Yet, so far, attempts to spark a repeat of the 2000 fuel protest have come to nothing.
Perhaps our hauliers have been watching events in China, where fuel prices are subject to Government price controls. Pump prices there are low: the equivalent of crude oil costing $68 a barrel rather than its actual price of over $110.
Unfortunately, this hasn't turned China into a people's republic of happy motoring. On the contrary, China's truckers were recently reported to be queuing for up to six hours to buy a 40-litre ration of fuel. If, that is, they could find an open filling station.
Fuel has been running short because the Government's subsidy to the national refining company is not sufficient to cover the refiner's losses on production if it buys on the world market and sells at the controlled price. So it holds down production.
This has had tremendous knock-on effects. Reports say that transport shortages have hit power station construction and coal deliveries. Electricity shortages have closed factories. As a result, factories and families have bought diesel generators to keep the lights on. The upshot is a huge rise in imports of refined diesel fuel to bypass the refineries.
Worldwide diesel refining capacity is barely adequate anyway, because no-one apparently foresaw the huge increase in diesel use in the last decade. So there's only just enough to go round and prices are high.
China's diesel shortages are easing now that the northern hemisphere winter heating season is over but analysts say that Chinese buyers have been busy reserving record levels of fuel for next winter.
That suggests a possible sharp spike in UK diesel prices at the turn of the year if competition hots up for remaining supplies. Hopefully it won't - but it is a good reason to push forward with plans to cut your fleet's carbon footprint during 2008 in any case.
Better than wishing for price controls though. You might get them.
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