With the price of crude oil showing no sign of slowing down and racing past $US110 ($NZ190) a barrel yesterday after Israel attacked a major Iranian oil field, it may get worse before it gets better.
But those in the South appear not to be slow in making sure they have plenty of petrol.
There are no sizable petrol cans left to be had in the city.
Mitre 10 Mega Dunedin sold out of 20-litre petrol cans in one day.
Marketing manager Hannah Greenheld said the store asked for more cans from its Auckland supplier on Monday, received just four cans and they were gone in a couple of hours.
Retail sales manager Nigel McCleery said as soon as petrol started going up a couple of weeks ago the cans, about 100 of them, were all gone in a day.
Petrol stations are also struggling to get their hands on their main product,
Mobil in Hillside Rd yesterday morning had run out of 98 and 95 petrol and all petrol purchases are now prepaid.
‘‘I mean you’re hearing it overseas and in Aussie as well. They’ve all gone a bit nuts and purchased stuff like that and it’s got out of control.
‘‘Petrol goes off, depending how long you want it. It’s never a good idea to put petrol in your house, in your garage. It can invalidate your insurance, so it’s just about being sensible.’’
He said it was best to keep tyres inflated and drive sensibly, but there were only limited things drivers could control.
Things were going to get worse before they got better and the Iranians were now targeting economic installations instead of military installations.
He said he could not see petrol getting to $4 a litre but in the short term it was probably going to get worse before it got better.
‘‘It’s not a world war, but it’s a war that affects the world.’’
Meanwhile, statistics show people appear to be using the bus more.
Otago Regional Council regional planning and transport general manager Anita Dawe said there had been emerging signs of increased usage in recent days, which may indicate an early behavioural shift.
On Wednesday, Dunedin had its highest patronage day of the year — 14,935 passengers.
Looking at the past four weeks of data, bus patronage in Queenstown has been consistently higher than last year.
However, the most recent days do not show any clear increase beyond the existing trend. In fact, some of the highest patronage levels this year occurred in mid-February, no days in March so far surpassing those peaks.
