But in Auckland, the price of petrol had hit a high of $2.99 at BP New Lynn by Monday morning.
The cheapest available petrol in Auckland has already increased 21 cents in the past six days to $2.41.
In Wellington, the cheapest available petrol had risen 14 cents in the past six days.
Meanwhile, 95 octane (premium petrol) has surged past $3 a litre around the country, hitting $3.12 in Auckland.
Collins said prices steadily crept up last week.
“I expect it to continue that trend,” he said. “You’d be struggling to get anything under $2.50 now.”
Collins said the pressure on oil prices was “going to go months, not weeks”.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where approximately 20% of the world’s oil flows, has largely halted.
“What you’ve got is a whole bunch of ships sitting around there with a full cargo and the production sites are going to have to start closing down because they’re going to run out of storage,” Collins said.
“That’s going to drag it out longer. These things you don’t just flick on with a switch. Once you start shutting them down it takes a process to start them up again.”
Collins said there were two distinct tensions operating in the Middle East.
“One is the Israeli-USA military want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible versus Iran, who will want to drag this out as long as possible … because they can’t beat them militarily but they can extract some revenge politically because of the US Midterms.
“From afar we just have to sit back and see what’s happening.”
Waitomo Group CEO Simon Parham told the Herald he’d seen a 10-15% increase in sales across its network last week.
“People are filling their cars ahead of the price increase that will flow through the market over the coming weeks,” he said.
