Australians have spent much of 2026 watching the numbers on petrol station price boards climb to levels that once would have caused disbelief.

Petrol above $2 a litre is no longer unusual.

Diesel approaching — and in some places exceeding — $3 a litre has become an uncomfortable reality.

The immediate explanation is the continuing turmoil in the Middle East. But there is a more important question for Australian households and businesses.

What if expensive fuel is no longer merely a temporary crisis?

Australia may not be facing permanently rising oil prices. Commodity markets rarely move in straight lines.

But the events of 2026 have exposed something more fundamental: Australia buys much of its transport fuel from an international market over which it has very little control.

And that market has become considerably more expensive and considerably less predictable.

The numbers are extraordinary

The ACCC's latest weekly monitoring showed average unleaded petrol across Australia's five largest capital cities at about $2.24 a litre on September 16.

Diesel averaged approximately $2.68 a litre.

Compared with February 20 — shortly before the latest Middle East conflict escalated — petrol was around 53 cents a litre more expensive and diesel approximately 91 cents more expensive.

Prices remain below the extreme peaks reached earlier in the conflict, so it would be misleading to describe today's national averages as record prices.

But they remain extraordinarily high by recent Australian standards.

More importantly, there may still be price pressure travelling through the system.

Australian Institute of Petroleum data shows average terminal gate prices — effectively wholesale prices before the final retail component — continuing to rise during the past week.

In Sydney, the terminal gate price for unleaded petrol increased from 224.7 cents a litre on September 17 to 233.6 cents on September 23.

Brisbane moved from 224.1 cents to 233.3 cents over the same period.

Diesel is more confronting.

Sydney's average terminal gate diesel price reached 277.7 cents a litre on September 23, while Brisbane was 278.2 cents and Darwin 284.3 cents.

That does not mean every service station will immediately charge those amounts.

It does mean the underlying wholesale cost confronting the Australian fuel market remains exceptionally high.

It isn't simply the price of crude oil

This is one of the most important things to understand about Australian petrol prices.

Australians do not simply buy Brent crude oil plus a retailer's margin.

The price of petrol sold here is heavily influenced by the international price of refined fuel.

The relevant benchmark for Australian unleaded petrol is Singapore Mogas 95.

For diesel it is Singapore Gasoil.

Those prices are influenced by crude oil, but they also reflect refinery capacity, availability of finished fuel, shipping, regional demand and competition between countries trying to secure supplies.

That distinction has become increasingly important during the Middle East crisis.

The latest government figures show Brent crude averaging about US$132 a barrel in the week to September 16, around 81 per cent above its pre-conflict level.

Singapore Gasoil was approximately US$185 a barrel, more than double its pre-conflict level.

Diesel therefore demonstrates why watching the headline crude-oil price alone can be misleading.

Australians ultimately need petrol and diesel, not barrels of crude.

And there is a delay

There is another reason falling oil prices don't immediately produce cheaper petrol.

The ACCC estimates that movements in international benchmark prices can take around two weeks to work through the Australian supply chain.

It can take longer in regional Australia.

Today's service-station price therefore partly reflects what happened in international markets days or weeks ago.

Conversely, a sudden fall in Brent tomorrow would not necessarily deliver cheap petrol this weekend.

There is a pipeline between the international market and the Australian bowser.

Then there is the Australian dollar

Oil and refined petroleum products are predominantly traded internationally in US dollars.

Australia buys them with Australian dollars.

Consequently, the exchange rate matters.

A weaker Australian dollar makes imported fuel more expensive even if the underlying US-dollar commodity price remains unchanged.

This creates another vulnerability largely invisible to motorists looking at an international oil-price chart.

Oil can fall and Australian fuel can remain expensive.

Tax has returned as well

There is another part of the price that has nothing to do with Iran, tankers or oilfields.

Fuel excise.

The Commonwealth temporarily reduced fuel excise during the crisis, but the full excise was restored on August 3.

The current rate is 53.7 cents a litre.

According to the ACCC, restoration of the remaining excise reduction together with indexation — including the associated GST effect — could add as much as 18.8 cents a litre compared with prices immediately before the August restoration.

That means even if international fuel prices retreat, Australians are now operating with a higher domestic tax component than they were during the period of emergency relief.

Australia isn't running out of fuel

There is an important distinction to make.

Australia's problem at present is primarily price, not an absence of fuel.

Government figures for September 15 showed minimum-stockholding supplies equivalent to approximately 41 days of petrol, 31 days of diesel and 32 days of jet fuel at normal consumption rates.

The government has also previously reported dozens of fuel ships heading towards Australia and billions of litres contracted for delivery.

That is reassuring from a physical supply perspective.

But it does not solve the price problem.

Australia can have adequate fuel while simultaneously paying an enormous price for it.

That is essentially what is happening.

Why Australia is particularly exposed

Australia is a substantial energy producer.

We export enormous quantities of coal and gas.

We also produce crude oil and condensate.

Yet Australia's transport system remains substantially exposed to international petroleum markets.

Most of the vehicles on Australian roads still require petrol or diesel.

Trucks require diesel.

Mining and agriculture consume enormous quantities of it.

Aircraft require aviation fuel.

Construction machinery needs fuel.

Supermarkets ultimately depend upon trucks.

A modern economy cannot simply stop buying petroleum because the international price becomes uncomfortable.

That creates an uncomfortable economic reality.

When international fuel becomes expensive, Australia generally has to keep buying it.

Diesel matters even if you don't own a diesel vehicle

Petrol prices are politically visible because millions of motorists encounter them every week.

Diesel may ultimately be economically more important.

A household might use 40 or 50 litres of petrol.

A transport fleet uses thousands of litres of diesel.

Farm machinery consumes diesel.

Mining equipment consumes diesel.

Construction equipment consumes diesel.

Generators consume diesel.

When diesel rises dramatically, businesses eventually have to absorb the cost or pass some of it through.

That means expensive diesel can appear later in the price of groceries, building materials, freight, manufactured goods and services.

Fuel inflation does not remain at the petrol station.

It travels through the economy.

So is $2 petrol the new normal?

Not necessarily.

If Middle East tensions ease, shipping risks diminish, refinery availability improves and international crude and refined-product prices retreat, Australian fuel prices could fall substantially.

Commodity prices can fall just as violently as they rise.

But there is another meaning of "normal" worth considering.

Perhaps the old assumption that Australian petrol will reliably return to comfortably below $2 whenever an international crisis passes can no longer be taken for granted.

Australia now confronts several layers of exposure simultaneously:

International crude prices;

International refined-fuel prices;

Middle East geopolitical risk;

Shipping and supply-chain disruption;

The Australian-US dollar exchange rate;

Domestic fuel taxation;

and Australia's continuing dependence on petroleum for transport and industry.

None of those factors alone determines what Australians pay.

Together they determine the number displayed outside the service station.

The larger lesson

For months, Australians have understandably watched the Strait of Hormuz, Iran, Saudi Arabia, tankers and the Brent crude price.

Those things matter.

But the events of 2026 have revealed something larger.

Australia's fuel vulnerability is not simply that the country could one day run short of petrol or diesel.

It is that Australia can have fuel available and still have remarkably little control over what it must pay for it.

That distinction matters.

A supply crisis eventually ends when supply returns.

A structural dependence remains after the crisis has passed.

The Times View

Australians should not assume today's extraordinary fuel prices will last forever.

Nor should they assume the prices Australians regarded as normal before 2026 will automatically return.

The immediate fuel shock has been created by war and disruption overseas. But it has exposed a domestic economic vulnerability that existed long before the first tanker was threatened.

Australia is geographically distant from the world's major refining centres, heavily dependent on road transport and exposed to international prices denominated in another country's currency.

We can hold adequate fuel stocks and keep ships arriving.

What we cannot readily control is the price the world asks us to pay.

Perhaps that is the most important lesson of Australia's fuel crisis.

The danger is not only running out of fuel. It is discovering that we cannot afford to treat cheap fuel as an Australian entitlement.