Treasury and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy briefed Parliament’s energy committee on Tuesday amid concerns over the spike in the price of fuel energy on the economy.

The conflict has seen the price of Brent crude oil skyrocket in the past few weeks since Russia is the world’s third largest producer of oil.

Senior economist at the National Treasury, Clinton Joel, said consumers are likely to feel the pinch over the coming months.

“The severity of the impact will ultimately be determined by the duration of the conflict and its impact on the global supply chains. The analysis presents scenarios of the implications of increased oil prices under specific assumptions and suggests consumers could pay anywhere between R1 and R3 more for a litre of fuel.

“The rise in oil prices will continue to place upward pressure on the price of fuel, further eroding household disposable income through transport costs.”

Meanwhile, the deputy director-general at Mineral Resources and Energy, Tseliso Maqubela, told MPs the conflict is no longer between Russia-Ukraine.

“It is affected by various factors but the greatest factor right now is geopolitics. In our view the conflict that is unfolding in Europe is no longer a Russia-Ukraine conflict, but it is a conflict that involves many countries because NATO countries have been drawn into the conflict, economically, not necessarily military, and now this makes it a global conflict.

“But the big issue is when imposing sanctions on the third-largest producer of oil, it is having some unintended consequences,” said Maqubela.

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