Michael West Media · AAP · Wednesday 22 April 2026
Ampol, supplier of roughly ten per cent of Australia's fuel, has booked a sharp lift in refining margins off the back of the Middle East conflict.
Ampol's margins spike because bombs fell somewhere else — the refinery equivalent of a funeral director having a good quarter. The price at the bowser doesn't go up because oil got harder to pump; it goes up because someone in Singapore decided the risk premium looks healthy. We built an economy that takes a clip off every war it isn't fighting and calls the windfall a market signal.