What happened?
On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched a series of strikes on Iran. Within hours, global oil markets reacted — Brent crude jumped above $100 a barrel and the cost of shipping fuel through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil and a huge share of Europe's diesel, spiked sharply.
UK forecourts felt it almost immediately. In the three weeks following the strikes, weekly government data showed petrol rising by 12p a litre and diesel by a painful 25p a litre. The rises then kept coming, day after day, for six and a half weeks.
By mid-April, petrol had climbed from 132.83p on 28 February to 158.3p — a 25.5p-a-litre rise. Diesel went from 142.38p to a striking 191.54p — a 49p rise in just six weeks. For a standard family car, that's an extra £14 a tank for petrol and an extra £27 a tank for diesel, compared with the start of the year.
A record-breaking run: The RAC describes the 43 straight days of rises as the longest unbroken daily increase on record. On 14 April, for the first time since the conflict began, prices stopped rising — and in the days that followed, they began to edge down. The crisis isn't over, but the direction has finally changed.
Why did diesel go up so much more than petrol?
The 33p gap between average petrol and diesel is one of the largest ever recorded in the UK. There's a specific reason for it, and it comes down to where Europe actually gets its fuel from.
The UK itself imports very little crude oil from the Middle East — according to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, only around 1% of imported crude comes from the region. On paper, that makes the UK look insulated. In practice, we're anything but.
As Alan Gelder, head of oils at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, explained: Europe is not a crude story — it's a product story. Around 60% of Europe's jet fuel and 30% of its diesel normally flow out through the Strait of Hormuz. When that flow stops, diesel and aviation fuel get hit first and hardest. Petrol, which Europe is more self-sufficient in, is affected — but less severely.
That's exactly what's played out at UK forecourts. Diesel prices surged roughly twice as fast as petrol, and diesel drivers have borne the brunt of the crisis.
The Strait of Hormuz factor: Normally 130–140 tankers pass through the strait every day. During April 2026, industry body BIMCO recorded an average of just 1.2 tankers leaving and 1.6 entering the Persian Gulf per day — a roughly 99% collapse in shipping traffic. Even with a ceasefire, it will take weeks for tanker flows to normalise, and longer still for those cargoes to reach European refineries.
A timeline of the crisis
- 28 February 2026: US and Israel strike Iran. Brent crude spikes above $100 a barrel.
- Early March: First forecourt rises begin. Diesel rising roughly twice as fast as petrol.
- 1 April 2026: RAC Foundation estimates drivers have paid over £1 billion in "war premium" at the pumps since 28 February, with £100m+ going to the Exchequer in extra VAT.
- Early April: Some London forecourts reach over 200p a litre for petrol. Diesel averages 181.2p nationally.
- 14 April 2026: After 43 straight days of rises, petrol tops out at 158.3p and diesel at 191.54p. Prices stop rising.
- Mid-to-late April: Wholesale prices drop back below pre-peak levels as Brent crude falls under $100. Pump prices begin their first falls in over six weeks.
Where are prices now?
As of late April 2026, national averages are sitting at around 157p for petrol and 189–191p for diesel. Both have started to dip — petrol by around half a pence a litre in the last week, diesel by closer to a penny. These are small movements, but they matter: they're the first declines since the end of February.
For context, a 55-litre family-car fill-up now costs roughly £87 for petrol and £105 for diesel. Before the conflict began, the same tanks cost around £73 and £78 respectively. Diesel drivers — particularly high-mileage commuters, taxi drivers and van operators — have been hit hardest.
Why are prices so slow to come down?
This is the question many drivers are asking, and it has a name in the industry: fuel prices "rise like a rocket and fall like a feather". There are three real reasons for the delay, and none of them are conspiracies.
- Retailers are sitting on expensive stock. The fuel in a station's underground tank was bought days or weeks ago at a higher wholesale price. Retailers can't sell it at a loss — they have to work through it before the new, cheaper stock starts feeding through.
- Wholesale-to-retail lag. Even when wholesale prices fall, it typically takes a week or two for those reductions to show up on pump signs. Smaller independents, who buy in smaller batches, often lag longer than the supermarkets.
- Middle-distillate supply is still tight. S&P Global analyst Rebeka Foley has warned that UK drivers will feel pressure "for weeks, if not months" because Europe is structurally short of diesel and jet fuel. Even when trade through the Strait of Hormuz resumes, it will take time for cargoes to physically arrive.
That said, RAC head of policy Simon Williams has said he expects petrol and diesel to fall by several pence a litre over the coming week or so, provided Brent crude stays under $100 a barrel. Whether retailers actually pass those savings on quickly is the question drivers should be watching.
The price gap between stations is wider than usual — and that's an opportunity
One less obvious effect of a volatile market is that the gap between the cheapest and most expensive stations widens sharply. Some retailers react to wholesale falls quickly; others don't. In early April, UK fuel comparison data showed some Suffolk forecourts selling petrol at 146.9p while certain motorway service stations were charging as much as 199.9p — a difference of over 50p a litre on the same day.
Even on a normal day, it's common to see 10–15p difference between the cheapest supermarket and a more expensive station just a few miles down the road. When markets are this volatile, those gaps get larger, and they move around more often. Filling up at the first station you see can easily cost you £8–£10 more per tank than the cheapest station in the same postcode.
This is exactly what we're built for: Our fuel map pulls live prices from over 7,400 UK stations every 15 minutes, directly from the UK Government's Fuel Finder data feed. You can see the cheapest petrol and diesel near you in a few seconds, add your regular stations to Favourites, and get a push notification the moment a price drops — so you catch the falls as they happen, not a week later.
What should drivers do right now?
A few practical things are worth doing while the market is still moving:
- Don't fill up at the first station you pass. Spend 30 seconds checking prices at two or three alternatives. In a volatile market, the savings are larger than usual.
- Avoid motorway service stations where possible. Even in normal conditions they're 10–20p per litre more expensive; during a price spike, the gap can be bigger still.
- Keep an eye on supermarkets. Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons tend to lead both the rises and the falls. They're usually the first to cut prices when wholesale costs drop.
- If you don't need to fill up today, wait a few days. With wholesale prices falling, next week's pump prices are likely to be lower than this week's — unless tensions in the Middle East flare up again.
- Drive a little gentler. Dropping from 80mph to 70mph on the motorway can cut consumption by up to 25%. It's the cheapest saving available and it starts working immediately.
- Turn on price-drop alerts for your regular stations. In a market this jumpy, being notified when your nearest forecourt cuts its price can save the effort of checking manually every morning.
What happens next?
There are three things worth watching over the coming months.
1. The Middle East. The ceasefire is fragile. Any renewed escalation, especially anything that further disrupts Strait of Hormuz tanker traffic, could send prices back up quickly. The consensus among analysts is that if Brent crude remains under $100 a barrel, pump prices should continue to fall. If it pushes back above $110, diesel at £2 a litre by summer is no longer an extreme scenario.
2. The fuel duty cut ends in September. The 5p-per-litre fuel duty cut introduced in March 2022 is due to expire from September 2026. Unless it's extended in the Autumn Budget, fuel duty will rise and will then increase annually in line with inflation. That's a one-off 5p rise baked into the system, on top of whatever the global market is doing.
3. Europe's diesel supply will take time to recover. Even once Gulf shipping returns to normal, analysts expect middle-distillate prices to stay elevated for a while as refiners rebuild stocks and cargoes make the long journey to European terminals. Don't expect diesel to drop back to pre-February levels quickly.
The bottom line
The worst may be behind us, but the bigger picture hasn't changed: UK fuel prices are still 25p to 50p a litre above where they were at the end of February, and drivers have already spent an extra billion pounds at the pumps because of a conflict thousands of miles away. The gap between what retailers pay wholesale and what they charge at the pump is usually where slow reductions hide — and the gap between the cheapest and most expensive station in your own town is usually where your easiest savings sit.
Prices are heading the right way at last. But this has been a clear reminder that in a market this exposed to global events, knowing where the cheap fuel actually is — and catching price drops as they happen — matters more than ever.