Impacts of the 2026 Middle East conflict on weekly fuel monitoring
The 2026 Middle East conflict has led to increased volatility in fuel importer costs and margins. Compared with previous global oil market shocks, the changes observed have been larger, faster and more uneven across fuel types.
On this page I tēnei whārangi
This page summarises the changes MBIE has made to its weekly fuel price monitoring methodology and fuel margin dataset in response to the 2026 Middle East conflict.
Timeline of events
27 February 2026
Start of the Middle East conflict, resulting in increased volatility in global oil market.
18 March 2026
MBIE temporarily pauses publication of the importer cost and importer margin series in response to this increased volatility.
1 July 2026
MBIE resumes publication of the importer cost and importer margin series, alongside analysis of the trends observed since the start of the conflict.
23 September 2026
MBIE introduces an updated importer cost methodology to better reflect fuel importation and supply costs during the period of market disruption.
Weekly fuels importer cost and margin restart analysis
On 18 March 2026, MBIE paused the publication of its importer cost and importer margin series due to increased volatility resulting from the 2026 Middle East conflict. MBIE resumed publishing these series on 1 July 2026, alongside a summary of the changes observed since the start of the conflict.
Key observations of the analysis include:
- Fuel importer costs and margins during the Middle East conflict have been more volatile than during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), COVID-19, or the Russia–Ukraine conflict.
- Initially, international fuel prices rose quickly, while New Zealand pump prices adjusted more slowly. This pushed importer margins down sharply in the early weeks of the conflict. Importer margins later rose because retail pricing came down more gradually than international prices. This meant the initial fall in importer margins was followed by a period of high importer margins.
- Volatility remains elevated, with frequent and significant weekly changes in both importer costs and margins across all fuel types.
- Diesel importer costs and margins were affected more than those for petrol.
Weekly fuels importer cost and margin restart analysis [PDF 436KB]
Importer costs methodology update
MBIE has continued to actively monitor market conditions to ensure our methodology remains fit for purpose.
The Commerce Commission, in consultation with fuel importers, identified additional costs being faced due to the 2026 Middle East conflict. In particular, traders applied a risk premium to physical fuel purchases to account for anticipated increases in global benchmark prices. These costs were not captured by the Commerce Commission’s or MBIE’s existing methodologies. In June 2026, the Commerce Commission introduced revisions to its own series to better reflect actual importer costs since the start of the Middle East conflict.
Monitoring and focus reports(external link) — Commerce Commission New Zealand
MBIE has worked with the Commerce Commission to this adjustment in its weekly fuel price monitoring data. On 23 September 2026, MBIE introduced revisions to its existing series to reflect this risk premium. This revision resulted in changes to previously published importer cost and importer margin data from 27 February through 23 September 2026.
Over this period, our revision resulted in an average importer cost increase of:
- 10 cents per litre for diesel
- 3 cents per litre for petrol.
As importer margins are calculated as:
Importer margin = Adjusted Retail Price – Taxes and Levies – Importer cost
...this adjustment has seen corresponding decreases in importer margins.
Our full methodology can be found here: