Petrol Pressure Eases as Trump Drops the Hormuz Toll
The immediate threat of another jump at the pumps eased today after Trump abandoned his 20% Hormuz toll and oil slipped back below $85 a barrel. This morning’s warning that a fresh spike was coming has, for now, softened. But British drivers are not off the hook: pump prices remain near 151p a litre, among the highest in over two years, and with a US blockade of Iranian ships still going ahead, the war premium in oil has not disappeared.
The day is a reminder of how tightly a British forecourt is now tied to a Gulf chokepoint: a single social-media post withdrawing a toll was enough to take a couple of dollars off crude and ease the immediate pressure on pumps, and a single strike could put it back. For the incoming government the volatility is the danger as much as the level, complicating the fiscal and monetary choices it inherits — a chancellor-in-waiting pledged to discipline, a Bank of England weighing oil-driven inflation against a slowing economy. The 5p fuel-duty cut, frozen to the end of the year, is the main thing holding pump prices down, and pressure to extend it will grow if oil stays high. For households the practical read is that the recent easing has paused rather than resumed. Watch where oil settles this week, whether ministers signal more duty relief, and the read-through to the next inflation figures.