Category Archives: Business

Australia fuel watch tracker: check current petrol and diesel prices, service station outages and shipments – in charts

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How much fuel does Australia have left today, and when could we run out? Track how much petrol and diesel prices have risen near you in Sydney, Melbourne and across the country.

Hundreds of service stations across Australia have run empty, fuel prices are elevated and oil shipments have been cancelled.

Australia is battling a fuel crisis as Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz continues to bite. The federal government has released fuel reserves, cut fuel excise taxes and rolled out a national fuel security plan.

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News live: Labor dismisses Tony Abbott’s calls for Australia to join war; Queensland MP Jimmy Sullivan found dead

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Former PM asks ‘What is the point of having armed forces if they’re not to be used to support our allies in a just cause.’ Follow updates live

Head of IMF says Iran war will permanently scar global economy even if peace is reached

The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the Iran war will permanently scar the global economy even if a durable peace deal in the Middle East can be reached.

But now, even our most hopeful scenario involves a growth downgrade. Even in a best case, there will be no neat and clean return to the status quo.

Penny Wong’s previous statements, whether it’s concerned or gravely concerned, have had no effect.

But cancelling more than a billion dollars in Israeli arms contracts – that would not only respond to the moral situation of the appalling Israeli military attacks, it would also have the benefit of putting a very real material pressure on Israel to pull back from what is a disastrous, illegal, immoral war in Lebanon that is threatening the entire globe’s peace.

We should not be buying weapons that have been tested by Israeli defence manufacturers in conflicts like Gaza and Lebanon, and we should not be contributing any weapons parts.

Right now it also would have the important additional benefit of making it clear to Israel that this comes at a direct and real cost to them.

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Lidl to open 50 UK stores in year ahead – and its first pub

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Almost 2,000 jobs will be created, with retailer vying to overtake Morrisons as Britain’s fifth largest supermarket

Lidl is to open 50 new UK stores in the year ahead – as well as its first pub – as it aims to overtake Morrisons as the country’s fifth largest supermarket chain.

The German-owned retailer has begun building a pub in east Belfast in response to strict local licensing laws that cap the number of premises that can sell alcohol.

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Track current petrol and diesel prices, service station outages and shipments – Australia’s fuel crisis in charts

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How much fuel does Australia have left today, and when could we run out? Check how much petrol and diesel prices have risen near you in Sydney, Melbourne and across the country since the US and Israel’s war on Iran began in late February

Hundreds of service stations across Australia have run empty, fuel prices are elevated and oil shipments have been cancelled.

Australia is battling a fuel crisis as Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz continues to bite. The federal government has released fuel reserves, cut fuel excise taxes and rolled out a national fuel security plan.

Continue reading...

Strait of Hormuz not open, Abu Dhabi’s oil chief says as crude prices rise

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Uncertainty over US-Iran ceasefire pushes price of Brent crude towards $100 a barrel

The boss of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company has said the strait of Hormuz is “not open” despite the US-Iran ceasefire agreed earlier this week, as uncertainty over the truce pushed the price of Brent crude towards $100 a barrel on Thursday.

Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said passage through the crucial waterway was subject to “permission, conditions and political leverage” by Iran. He said energy security and global economic stability depended on the strait being opened “fully, unconditionally and without restriction”.

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Anthropic keeps latest AI tool out of public’s hands for fear of enabling widespread hacking

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AI company says purpose of its Claude Mythos model is to bolster defenses against hacking in common applications

Anthropic on Tuesday said its yet-to-be-released artificial intelligence model called Claude Mythos has proven keenly adept at exposing software weaknesses.

Mythos has laid bare thousands of vulnerabilities in commonly used applications for which no patch or fix exists, prompting the San Francisco-based AI startup to form an alliance with cybersecurity specialists to bolster defenses against hacking and withhold wide distribution.

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New Zealand asks US to send fuel tankers to Pacific to alleviate pressure caused by Iran war

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After meeting with Marco Rubio, foreign minister Winston Peters says he made sure US understands ‘significant economic impacts on New Zealand and Pacific’

New Zealand has called on the US to send fuel tankers to the Pacific to help alleviate some of the significant economic and fuel pressure caused by the war in the Middle East.

Winston Peters, New Zealand’s foreign minister, met the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in Washington on Tuesday, where they discussed bilateral relations, the war in Iran and the Pacific.

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World held hostage by reliance on fossil fuels, Christiana Figueres warns – and climate health impacts are ‘mother of all injustices’

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Exclusive: Former UN climate chief to co-chair Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality

Countries are being “held hostage” by their reliance on fossil fuels, a former UN climate chief has warned, describing the health impacts of climate change as “the mother of all injustices”.

Christiana Figueres, an international climate negotiator who helped deliver the Paris agreement signed in 2016, made the comments as she was announced on Wednesday as co-chair of a Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality.

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Hedge fund borrowing exposes emerging markets to greater Iran war risk, says IMF

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Analysis shows developing economies more likely to experience higher interest rates and currency shocks

Emerging economies are at greater risk of higher interest rates and currency shocks resulting from the Iran war because of increased reliance on market investors such as hedge funds, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The IMF’s analysis shows that a cumulative $4tn flowed into emerging markets last year from outside the formal banking sector – including from hedge funds and investment funds.

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Waitrose under pressure to reinstate worker sacked after stopping shoplifter

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Retailer faces public outcry over treatment of Walker Smith, who tackled shoplifter stealing Easter eggs at London store

Waitrose is under growing pressure to reinstate an employee of 17 years who was sacked after tackling a shoplifter who was trying to steal Lindt Gold Bunny Easter eggs.

The retailer has faced public outcry over its treatment of Walker Smith, who was fired two days after he stopped the shoplifter taking items from the Easter egg display.

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Small UK firms’ energy bills set to more than double due to Iran war

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Companies using heating oil have already begun rationing their fuel use, says Federation of Small Businesses

Thousands of independent businesses across the UK are braced for their energy bills to more than double owing to the sharp rise in heating oil costs as the war in Iran pushed Europe’s fuel market prices to fresh record highs.

About 7% of all small and medium-sized companies warm their properties and provide hot water using heating oil, which in some cases has more than doubled in recent weeks.

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Track current petrol and diesel prices, service station outages and shipments – Australia’s fuel crisis in charts

Posted on by

How much fuel does Australia have left today, and when could we run out? Check how much petrol and diesel prices have risen near you in Sydney, Melbourne and across the country since the US and Israel’s war on Iran began in late February

Hundreds of service stations across Australia have run empty, fuel prices are elevated and oil shipments have been cancelled.

Australia is battling a fuel crisis as Iran’s closure of the strait of Hormuz continues to bite. The federal government has released fuel reserves, cut fuel excise taxes and rolled out a national fuel security plan.

Continue reading...

Iran strikes Kuwait’s oil infrastructure before Opec+ supply talks

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Members reportedly agree a rise of 206,000 barrels a day in May, but move symbolic while strait of Hormuz is effectively closed

Iranian drones have struck Kuwait’s oil infrastructure, causing “severe material damage” that threatens to further disrupt oil supplies already hit by the US-Israel war on Iran.

The drone strikes on Sunday came hours before members of the Opec+ group of major global oil suppliers gathered to discuss how to bolster output despite Iran’s effective closure of the strait of Hormuz shipping route.

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Labour to back down on foie gras and fur bans to ease EU trade deal

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Exclusive: Animal welfare charities ‘bitterly disappointed’ UK government plans to backtrack on manifesto promises

  • This article contains an image of a duck being force-fed that some readers may find upsetting

The UK government is to break a manifesto commitment to ban foie gras imports, and has declined to stop fur imports, after the EU made these red lines in its discussions for a trade deal.

Animal welfare charities say they are “bitterly disappointed” that ministers are failing to use powers granted by Brexit to restrict the import of these “cruel” items.

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Waitrose employee sacked after stopping shoplifter from taking Easter eggs

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Walker Smith, 54, who worked for retailer for 17 years, says he grabbed bag from thief before they escaped

A Waitrose employee of 17 years has described his devastation after being sacked for stopping a shoplifter who had ransacked a display of Lindt Gold Bunny Easter eggs.

Walker Smith, a shop assistant at a branch of Waitrose in Clapham Junction, south London, was going about his normal duties when a customer stopped him. “They told me someone had filled up a Waitrose bag with the eggs,” he said.

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Biometric checks stalled again for cross-Channel travellers

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Fears of Easter chaos over scaling up of new EU border system are eased, with no facial IDs for Eurotunnel and Eurostar passengers

Passengers crossing the Channel from the UK to France will not face new biometric checks in the coming weeks, despite an imminent deadline for the complete implementation of the EU’s entry-exit system (EES), ports say.

Airlines and airports across Europe have feared chaos over the Easter holidays.

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‘Over the top and fun:’ TGI Fridays boss insists time is right for a UK revival

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Ray Blanchette admits he may be a ‘little crazy’ as he outlines chain’s hopes of building 1,000 outlets globally

“I am a little crazy maybe,” admits Ray Blanchette, a former TGI Fridays kitchen manager who has taken on the revival of the bar-restaurant chain’s UK business in the face of blasting industry headwinds.

Blanchette’s family investment firm, Sugarloaf, rescued the Dallas-based parent business from administration in 2025. He then went on to pick up its UK arm in January after the local franchisee got into difficulties, retaining 33 UK restaurants but closing 16, with the loss of 456 jobs.

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Young people ‘more likely to leave for health reasons when in low-paid, insecure jobs’

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Research for TUC analyses link between job quality and economic inactivity, as UK youth unemployment rises

Young people in the UK are more likely to leave their job for health reasons and become economically inactive when they work in insecure, low-paid sectors, a study has found.

Research carried out for the Trades Union Congress by the consultancy Timewise charts a connection between the jobs young people are most likely to do – in hospitality, retail and care, for example – and the proportion of people leaving because of ill health.

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Alleged maple syrup scam in Quebec uncovered by Canadian broadcaster

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A Radio-Canada reporter noticed his maple syrup tasted odd; testing revealed it was adulterated with cane sugar

An investigation by Canada’s national broadcaster has found that a major Quebec producer has been diluting its maple syrup with cane sugar and selling the fraudulent product to grocery chains.

In a sting operation that involved false identities and covert recordings, journalists from Radio-Canada’s Enquête programme found that a low-cost syrup sold in major grocery store chains was heavily diluted.

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Oil price jumps and markets slide after Trump warning to Iran

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Brent crude rises 8% as US president vows to hit Iran ‘extremely hard’ over coming weeks

Oil prices have soared after Donald Trump vowed in a televised speech to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the coming weeks, knocking hopes of a near-term end to the conflict in the Middle East.

Brent crude prices jumped by as much as 8% on Thursday to $109.74 a barrel, reversing Wednesday’s drop when hopes of a de-escalation in the Iran war pushed the international benchmark below the $100-a-barrel mark at one point.

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