Motorists were warned last night that petrol prices seem certain to pass £1 a litre within days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out many of the oil refineries on the US Gulf coast.
As US oil companies bought up 20 shiploads of European petrol yesterday, the wholesale price of petrol on the Rotterdam spot market soared to a record of $855 a tonne (more than $100 a barrel), up more than 20% in two days and something experts said would feed through to the forecourt within days.
Oh my god the americans are buying up all our petrol and the hurricane season has only just started.
Time to get the bike out