Petrol prices, which have risen nearly 10 per cent in the past eight weeks, look likely to continue their climb for at least the next month.
AA Ireland's Mr Conor Faughnan said yesterday the current average price for a litre of petrol was nearly €1, up from 90 cent during the first week of April. "Prices have risen remorselessly throughout May."
During trading yesterday, the price of a barrel of US light crude jumped to a record of $42.45, the highest level since futures were launched in New York in 1983.
The price later eased to below $42 as trading continued throughout the day.
A spokeswoman for Statoil said the company reviewed the wholesale prices it charged to its customers every two weeks, and based on its most recent review it did not plan to increase prices.
"We have seen such dramatic changes in the price of the traded barrel in the last month alone that it's impossible to speculate on what's going to happen next."
The spokeswoman added that the review occurred prior to last weekend's attacks in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, in which gunmen killed 22 people, including 19 foreigners, in the oil city of Khobar.
The attack raised fears that many expatriates could leave the country, crippling an economy where 35 per cent of the workforce is of foreign origin.
A spokeswoman for Esso Ireland said the company had most recently raised wholesale prices on May 14th, but declined to speculate on when or if the company would raise prices further.
Mr Faughnan called for the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, to roll back a fuel tax increase of 5 cent per litre in the most recent budget, calling it "a major mistake".
Last week a spokesman for Mr McCreevy, responding to calls from the Irish Road Haulage Association to roll back the fuel tax increase, said: "It would be out of line with long-established budgetary practices to alter tax rates between budgets, and would undermine prudent fiscal planning."
"We don't see any immediate prospect of an oil price reduction," said Mr Faughnan.
He added that when oil prices increased, motorists usually saw it at the pump after a lag of about four to six weeks. - Additional reporting by Reuters