OpenAI won’t go public in 2026, Chief Executive Sam Altman says, citing safety concerns over artificial intelligence that render “unacceptable” even a 10 per cent risk that AI could cause human extinction by decade’s end.

The comments come as more ‌US lawmakers urge new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two researchers from OpenAI rival Anthropic that rapidly progressing AI could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.

“I actually think that, given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don’t feel pressure on that,” Altman told business magazine Fortune on Saturday.

Asked if there was a 10 per cent chance of AI-driven extinction, Altman said he didn’t ‌know how such an ‌estimate could be made, but ⁠warned the risk was serious enough that AI companies and governments should act as though it ​could not be tolerated.

“Whether it’s 10 or eight or six, the point is, we all have a tremendous amount of responsibility, and cannot let egos or incentives for profit or anything else get in the way,” Altman added.

“We need to act such that we are not taking any of those numbers of risk, and I believe we can.”

Politicians have responded with alarm and called for more action after cases of AI agents going ⁠rogue to hack external systems and AI safety researchers quitting their companies out of ‌concern at ​the technology risks.

In June, the New York Times said San Francisco-based OpenAI was considering whether to hold off until 2027 on a potentially trillion-dollar IPO.

At ​the time, shares ‌in Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO were tumbling after a surge that sent that company’s valuation to $US1.8 trillion ($A2.5 trillion).

Asked by Fortune if an IPO date of 2026 ​was off the table in favour of 2027, Altman said, “I would say not 2026”.

“We got a lot of stuff to do, like meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety and alignment, and how the industry and governments can work together.”

Altman also ​suggested ​that OpenAI and other leading AI firms may be close to ​unveiling a pact to slow AI development and work together to tackle safety ‌risks.

On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to take a more deliberate approach to development.

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote in an essay on X.

Altman later posted that he agreed with the sentiment.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote. 

“This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.”

Safety ​concerns have not slowed Anthropic’s own IPO plans. It is expected to begin marketing its initial public offering in mid-October at the earliest and complete ​the listing days before the US midterm ⁠elections in November, people familiar with the matter told Reuters this month.

Comments by senior Reserve Bank of Australia officials will be closely monitored as anticipation builds towards another interest rate hike later this month.

The central bank’s chief economist, Sarah Hunter, will participate in a fireside chat at a Regional Australia Institute summit in Canberra on Monday.

Then, RBA governor Michele Bullock will appear before a parliamentary committee on Friday.

Both are expected to echo recent comments from bank officials reiterating that inflation is too high and leaving the door open to further interest rate hikes, following the three the bank has handed down so far in 2026.

Dr Hunter and RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser sent bonds markets into a spin in separate hawkish speaking appearances last week.

Markets are now pricing in about a four in five chance the RBA will lift the cash rate by 25 basis points on September 29.

Westpac’s economics team was the last of the big four banks to drop their call for no more rate hikes following Mr Hauser’s appearance on ABC’s 730 program.

But Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis still thinks the RBA is more likely to hike in November than September.

Even though July monthly inflation data surprised strongly to the upside, the board tends to prefer to move after less volatile quarterly inflation data.

“Overreacting to a noisy monthly print is something they have previously said they would not do,” Dr Ellis said.

“That said, if the internal members felt the situation was more urgent and wanted to get the hike done in September, we believe they could muster a majority of Monetary Policy Board votes in favour.”

Strong consumer price data has meanwhile reinforced expectations among Wall Street investors that the US Federal Reserve will also raise rates to fight inflation.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.86 per cent to end Friday’s session at 7,656.98 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.96 per cent to 26,333.04 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.98 per cent to 52,573.29 points.

Australian share futures were up 18 points, or 0.20 per cent, to 16,526.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 78.2 points on Friday, down 0.89 per cent, to 8,741.2, as the broader All Ordinaries slumped 88.1 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 8,920.2.

A growing consumer push to buy Canadian and boycott US products is reshaping supermarket shelves in Canada, forcing grocers to improve country-of-origin labelling and ‌secure new sources of supply.

In Ontario, the president of independent grocer Vince’s Market, Giancarlo Trimarchi, turned to Facebook to show customers that most produce on the shelves of his stores is Canadian after receiving angry emails and comments about the grocer ‌stocking US produce.

A bitter trade war between the United States and Canada has made consumers more conscious of where their dollars go.

“Buy Canadian” movements started last year after US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian goods. 

They have intensified in recent ‌weeks after trade talks broke down and Trump signed an executive order to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.

“It is a lot more aggressive this time around than last year,” Trimarchi said in an interview.

Trump told reporters in Dublin on Saturday that Canada is eager to reach a trade deal with the United States and that an agreement could come “fairly soon,” while repeating his complaints that Canada has treated US farmers unfairly and should remove tariffs.

Trimarchi’s four stores, spread across the Greater Toronto Area, now have about 90 per cent Canadian produce. 

Trimarchi is now sourcing strawberries from Quebec instead of the United States and said he has cut his advertising budget as the changes have pressured operating costs.

“We were always ‌put in a position ‌where you had to balance quality versus ⁠price. Now it’s quality versus price versus country of origin,” Trimarchi said.

Loblaw Cos, Canada’s largest food retailer, in August brought back large signs featuring a maple ​leaf in its produce and fresh-food sections after a brief hiatus to flag the Canadian origins of products. 

Loblaw also reintroduced a “T” tag to inform customers which products are affected by tariffs and make Canadian products easier to identify.

Metro, the country’s third-largest grocer, said it would continue to prioritise local Canadian products in the current context.

“There has been a permanent change in the Canadian psyche,” said Gary Sands, senior vice president of public policy and advocacy for the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers.

Canada is the world’s fifth-largest importer of fresh vegetables by value. 

The United States is still the biggest supplier of fresh produce, accounting for more than half of the imports, followed by Mexico.

However, the share of Canada’s vegetable imports from the United States fell to ⁠62.6 per cent in July, the latest government data showed, from 69 per cent in the same month of 2023, before Trump was elected.

More than half ‌of Canada’s fruit imports ​came from the United States as of July. 

Trade talks broke down on August 21, spurring a new round of tariffs and counter-tariffs.

John Ambard, 27, a software engineer who lives in downtown Toronto, said he has ​tried to avoid ‌buying American products when possible, preferring to support Canadian brands and businesses. 

Ambard said he checks product labels and researches companies online to identify Canadian-made goods.

“I think, honestly, if I can support Canadian products and Canadian institutions through ​these tough times, I think that’s a way to help in my small way,” Ambard said. 

“I’m a little bit mad with America right now with how things are going. The attitude has just not been that of a friend.”

Canada’s harsh winters present a challenge for fresh produce, and grocers typically rely on greenhouses, stocked root vegetables or imports, which are usually more cost-effective. 

But the change in sentiment toward the United States could ​push grocers ​to explore more local suppliers, experts say, while Canada invests in building a more self-reliant food ​system.

The Canadian government is investing about C$3 billion  ($A3 billion) over 10 years to build greenhouses to increase production during the harsh ‌winter months.

Cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne has donated £36 million ($A68 million)  to Britain’s anti-immigration Reform UK, ‌matching an already record contribution to Nigel Farage’s party a day earlier as it prepares for the next election.

The donation gives the veteran Brexit campaigner’s party £72 million ($A136 million) from two donors ‌in less than 48 hours at a time when it is confronting allegations about irregularities in its funding, which it denies.

The figure exceeds what either the governing Labour Party or the opposition Conservatives spent during last year’s election campaign, according to Electoral Commission figures. 

The funds will help Reform, whose lead in opinion polls has slipped over the funding allegations, win over voters before the next election, which is due by 2029.

Harborne, already Reform’s biggest donor, disclosed the contribution in a Telegraph newspaper article, saying ‌fellow crypto investor Ben Delo’s ‌pledge a day earlier ⁠had inspired him to match it.

“What do I expect in return for my donations? Nothing. No peerage, no ​policy change, just a party that is ready for government,” Harborne wrote in the article.

Delo’s donation on Friday had already dwarfed the previous record of £10 million ($A19 million) that British businessman John Sainsbury, who died in 2022, had left to the Conservatives, according to the Electoral Commission’s online database.

Reform has said that if it comes to power, it would propose a law to boost crypto adoption, including by cutting capital gains tax for digital assets and creating a bitcoin reserve fund at the Bank of England.

The donation ⁠comes little more than a week after Reform was hit by allegations that two ‌senior aides to ​Farage had helped arrange for a foreign donor to fund political polling, claims which the party denies.

Earlier in September, Reform said head of policy James Orr and Farage ​adviser Dan Jukes ‌had stepped down pending an internal investigation after an undercover investigation broadcast by Channel 4 alleged the party had broken electoral law by arranging for a US ​company to pay for polling commissioned by the party.

Reform has denied any wrongdoing, saying it had been targeted in a hoax by climate activists. Farage has said the party had “broken no laws” and had not taken any improper donations.

Labour has asked police to investigate possible offences linked to the allegations. 

Police ​said ​they were assessing information provided to them, while the Electoral Commission said ​it was considering the claims and was in contact with law enforcement.

On Friday, Delo, ‌the British co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX who was convicted of a US Bank Secrecy Act violation and later pardoned by President Donald Trump, said he would donate £36 million ($A68 million) to Reform.

Delo said he wanted the party to spend less time fundraising and more time preparing for government, arguing it needed resources to compete with Britain’s two established parties, Labour and the Conservatives.

Farage welcomed the backing from both men on Saturday.

“I am honoured and humbled that Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne have shown such ​confidence in Reform,” he said in a statement.

“Both men know that we are the only party that can turn the country around and win the next ​general election. Thanks to their generosity, we are ⁠now able to fight that election on a level playing field.”

A lightning offensive by the Iran-aligned Houthis has put the militants in a position to control a crucial Middle East waterway, creating a ‌major new problem for US President Donald Trump as his war with Iran grinds on in its seventh month.

Widening the Middle East conflict, Houthi fighters have advanced south along Yemen’s coast, increasing their ability to choke off the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — the “Gate of Tears” at the mouth ‌of the Red Sea — giving Tehran potential leverage over both of the region’s main oil-shipping corridors.

The militants reached the island of Perim on Friday, in the middle of the strait between Yemen and Africa. That is bad news for Saudi Arabia, which has been shipping much of ‌its oil from Red Sea ports since the war effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.

It also comes at a difficult time for Trump, who is already grappling with record-low approval ratings and searching for a way out of the conflict, most recently by announcing an economic pressure campaign designed to force concessions from Iran’s government.

High US petrol prices driven by the conflict have jeopardised his Republican Party’s chances of keeping control of Congress in the November midterm elections.

Iran remains defiant despite being hurt militarily and economically.

“Just weeks ago, Trump adopted a strategy of squeezing Iran’s economy while keeping military conflict at levels too low to squeeze the American economy,” said Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The Houthis have shattered Trump’s plan.”

The US ‌administration can’t afford to have ‌the Houthis close the strait, driving up energy ⁠prices and disrupting global trade.

But at the same time, entering a fight with a foe that has withstood previous attacks by Saudi Arabia and the US would be a dangerous ​new mission for a US military already stretched by the fighting in Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, phoned Trump on Thursday and asked for US military help fighting the Houthis, three sources told Reuters.

He was told Washington would not intervene directly for now but would help with intelligence, the sources said.

Trump confirmed on Saturday that he had spoken to the crown prince and said the Houthis had also phoned his administration and asked for Washington not to become directly involved in the conflict.

A senior Trump administration official declined to address specific questions, but said the US is focused on national security interests such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea “while empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges”.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Houthis did not respond to a request ⁠for comment.

Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the Yemen conflict could not be solved by blockade or military action against ‌the Houthis and called for dialogue, ​without addressing Iran’s own role.

Iran responded to US and Israeli attacks earlier this year by disrupting the Strait of Hormuz, the outlet to the Gulf through which around a fifth of global oil supplies flowed before the war.

If the Houthis close the ​Bab el-Mandeb, that ‌would deal another economic blow, constraining another 7.0 per cent of global petroleum supplies and about 12 per cent of global trade.

“This was always the worst-case scenario, that the Iranians exert control not only over the Strait of Hormuz but Bab el-Mandeb, two of the leading energy choke ​points in the world,” said David Schenker, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs during Trump’s first term and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

“It’s an enormous amount of leverage that (the Iranians) have in hand.”

Analysts and former officials say Trump now faces a choice: devote US forces and scarce air-defence munitions to pushing back the Houthis, or leave Saudi Arabia and its allies, a Yemeni government based in the south, to confront ​them alone.

The BRICS group ‌of nations has unanimously adopted a joint declaration expressing “deep concern” over ‌the war in the Middle East and urging maximum restraint.

The declaration, adopted on the first day of the BRICS leaders’ annual summit in New Delhi on Saturday, comes at a time when United States and Iran have resumed ‌tit-for-tat strikes ‌against ⁠each other, after a pause in fighting for ​much of August.

The BRICS bloc includes both Iran and Washington-ally United Arab Emirates, which was expected to make clinching a joint statement consensus a particularly challenging task for host India.

“We express ⁠deep concern over the continued ‌escalation ​of tensions in Middle East…call for exercising maximum restraint…avoiding actions that ​could further aggravate ‌the situation,” the declaration said.

It also reiterated ​the commitment of member nations to a peaceful resolution of international disputes “through dialogue, consultation, and diplomacy”.

In addition, they ​voiced ​concerns about the rise ​of “unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures” ‌that distort trade, against the backdrop of US sanctions against Tehran amid its war with the country, and against Russia over its conflict with Ukraine.

In an earlier address, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the BRICS group of countries to draw up a roadmap with 10 reform proposals for global governance by the next summit.

“The current structure of global governance looks like a pyramid,” he told the gathering in New Delhi in Saturday.

“At its top are concentrated power and decision-making. And at the bottom are those countries that are affected by these decisions, but cannot shape them,” he said.

The plenary session brought together, in the main hall of the Bharat Mandapam convention center, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, among other heads of state of the bloc.

Modi stated that the roadmap must be articulated around three axes – representation, responsiveness, and rule-making – to increase the weight of emerging economies in international institutions.

“The reform of the United Nations Security Council can no longer be postponed,” stressed the Indian leader, who called for linking negotiations on its reform to defined deadlines and concrete results.

Modi also demanded that the voting power, leadership positions, and priorities of international financial institutions better reflect the current weight of the economies driving global growth.

In his address to the summit, President Xi called on ‌the BRICS bloc to be a peacemaker in ‌the Middle East conflict.

China will work with other BRICS members in that role, as the war “does not serve the common ‌interests of ‌the international ⁠community”, state-run CCTV quoted Xi ​as saying.

The BRICS group includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

It was set up in 2009 to ⁠challenge a world ‌order ​dominated by the United States and its Western ​allies. Together, its members ‌account for more than 40 per cent of the ​world’s population and almost a quarter of the global economy.

The Chinese leader called the ​bloc ​a “leading group” in ​the Global South and a ‌model of self-reliance among emerging and developing countries that should promote innovation-driven development.

He said China would assume the BRICS chairmanship next year, and host the ​19th summit.

Australian investors are pouring money into exchange-traded funds but they’re less interested in those exposed to domestic shares.

A record $7 billion was invested in ETF products in August, narrowly surpassing the $6.8 billion high water mark set in July to take the Australian ETF industry to $375.6 billion. 

That’s growth of $44 billion since the start of 2026 and 37 per cent ahead of the industry’s growth for the same eight months in 2025.

“It’s been a cracker of a year,” VanEck Asia Pacific chief executive and managing director Arian Neiron told AAP.

ETFs are financial instruments that trade like shares while offering exposure to a basket of underlying assets – anything from stocks and bonds to commodities and cryptocurrencies.

They’ve been around in Australia since 2001 and have grown in popularity in the past seven or eight years.

More than half of the $7 billion in August inflows went offshore, with $3.9 billion going into ETFs devoted to global equities.

Vanguard’s MSCI Index International Shares ETF, which invests in 1300 companies in 23 developed countries, took in $491 million, while Betashares Global Shares ETF added $354.4 million.

“Investors are chasing AI picks, the shovel trade, US exceptionalism and the US earnings,” Mr Neiron said.

Only 17 per cent of August’s inflows – $1.2 billion – went into ETFs devoted to Australian shares. 

ETFs stuffed with Australian shares represent 27 per cent of the local industry’s assets under management, and allocations have declined steeply in the past 12 months, according to VanEck.

This means the Australian share market is now competing for a share of wallet it used to receive by default.

Mr Neiron said investors were concerned about Australian corporations’ earnings growth. 

“You look at the big banks, fully priced with the federal budget concern about housing, and we’re starting to see housing prices come off,” he said.

However, ETFs devoted to Australian bonds did well in August, taking in 14 per cent of the month’s flows.

Australian 10-year bonds this week hit a 15-year high of 5.37 per cent.

“When you compare that to Australian dividends, you look at the risk-reward trade; Australian equities valuations are a little bit expensive,” Mr Neiron said.

VanEck predicts Australia’s ETF industry to hit a whopping $400 billion by the end of the year.

By comparison, the country’s superannuation industry is valued at about $4.5 trillion.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have captured a strategic island at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, opening a new front in the Iran war and further threatening Saudi oil exports through one of the world’s key shipping lanes.

The Houthis’ biggest territorial gains in years, along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, could boost Iran’s strategy of driving up world oil and gas prices to pressure the United States.

The capture of Mayun, a tiny, barren volcanic island inside the strait also known as Perim, was confirmed by a senior military official with Yemen’s internationally recognised government and by a Houthi official.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has increasingly relied on the Red Sea to get its crude to market as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been striking ships.

Houthi moves to close the 28km-wide Bab el-Mandeb channel have made that route more complicated.

In a statement on Friday, the Houthi armed forces boasted of gains along the coast.

They vowed “escalation for escalation” in their confrontation with Saudi Arabia, while declaring that “maritime navigation is safe for all companies except for Saudi vessels”.

Financial markets are nervous, and experts have described the Houthis as highly unpredictable. Crude prices this week soared once again above $US100 a barrel, giving Tehran more leverage in any talks.

The Houthis have been attacking Saudi shipping on the Red Sea since declaring a blockade in July, as well as oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia.

The rebels said they acted in response to the kingdom’s years-long blockade of Houthi-held parts of Yemen.

Shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait had fallen by about 60 per cent since the Houthis began attacking ships there in late 2023 and expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Shipping increased this year as Saudi Arabia sought alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz, but renewed Houthi threats have “curtailed” that activity, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

That has forced Saudi Arabia to find yet another alternative, sending its oil north out of the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, either via the Suez Canal or a pipeline through Egypt, a far longer route for its clients in Asia.

The Houthis have threatened that route as well, striking a Saudi vessel in the north of the Red Sea in late August.

Earlier on Friday, Iran’s government called for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Houthi-held areas in a show of support for its ally.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also called for a return to negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.

In a sign of how important the Houthis have become for Tehran, the spokesperson for Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday called for any negotiated settlement with the US to include Yemen, the first explicit reference to that front.

The call mirrored Iran’s past stance that a truce in Lebanon between its ally Hezbollah and Israel must be a part of any deal with the US.

As the Houthis swept along the Red Sea coast toward the Bab el-Mandeb channel, Yemen’s Saudi-backed government called for international support.

The escalating fighting threatens to end a fragile truce that had largely halted Yemen’s civil war since 2022.

At stake are the 40 million people in the Arab world’s poorest country who fear a return to the conflict that killed 150,000 and brought many others to the brink of famine.

An Australian company has developed an artificial intelligence product that works like a human brain.

Sydney-based tech company BrainChip’s AI chip responds to situations like a mind’s neural pathways and synapses.

The product requires low levels of power because it remains dormant until stimuli – hearing, seeing or sensing something – activates the device. 

BrainChip was not attempting to compete with other chip companies like Nvidia – the world’s largest business – because it was not trying to create the most powerful chips, chief executive Sean Hehir said.

The product can operate on less than one watt of power.

“This company, founded on a vision from two founders, was about mimicking the human brain, which is the most efficient computational engine on the planet,” Mr Hehir told a briefing on Friday.

“There is virtually nobody in this market who can do the things that we can do.”

One medical company using BrainChip in a pair of glasses to track eye movement can predict epileptic seizures an hour in advance with 98 per cent accuracy.

“In the past, people with epilepsy … were afraid to drive because they were concerned about having a seizure,” Mr Hehir said.

“This creates a whole potential freedom of life.”

Australia has been pinned as the future data capital of the world due to its vast landscape and natural resources.

Economist Chris Richardson highlighted the country’s AI potential at a National AI Summit in Canberra in August.

“This opportunity is the largest I have seen in my life … we need to run at it with speed,” he told the summit.

However, the development of data centres in Australia has been stymied by legislation, community hurdles and the excessive energy resources required to run them.

BrainChip circumvented this problem, Mr Hehir said, because products using its chip did not require data centres and the internet.

This added privacy and security to products and has made BrainChip sought after in the defence sector.

“The defence world has changed dramatically … in a defence situation, you cannot afford to lose a network,” Mr Hehir said. 

“You need to do your inference locally.”

Despite noting interest in BrainChip, investors raised questions on Friday about the company’s financial position, which Mr Hehir described as “lumpy”.

For the half year ended June 30, it lost $US12 million ($A17 million) – up from the $US9.4 million ($A13.1 million) loss recorded in the previous corresponding period.

BrainChip was trading about 13.5 cents on Friday, down 3.6 per cent, but has risen as high as 27 cents in the past year.

Australians are being warned sky-high fuel prices are likely to stay as the war in the Middle East reaches dangerous levels of escalation.

As the US-led war on Iran shows no signs of ending and oil tankers are being targeted and sunk in the Strait of Hormuz by both sides, global oil prices have surged above $US100 a barrel.

This has led to fuel prices in Australia jumping at the bowser to an average price for regular unleaded of $2.11, a massive increase from $1.55 in July.

For diesel, oil prices increased almost 50 per cent since the of June.

The surging prices are sparking inflation fears and raising concerns the Reserve Bank of Australia will lift the cash rate when the monetary policy board meets again at the end of September.

High fuel prices were the “new norm”, NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said.

“It really depends exclusively, almost, on what’s going to happen in the Middle East,” he told AAP.

“We’ve seen dangerous levels of escalation in the last few days, so you’ve got the situation where they’re blowing up each other’s oil tankers in the ocean, so that doesn’t help.”

In response to soaring prices at the start of the conflict in the Middle East earlier in 2026, the Albanese government temporarily halved the fuel excise in April, slashing 26 cents off a litre.

A scaled-back extension of the fuel excise was reduced to 16 cents per litre for petrol and diesel, which lasted until August 2.

Mr Khoury said the government keeping its options open remained the best approach to the unfolding crisis.

“Even though the average price for unleaded nationally is $2.11, in April it was $2.60, and that was at that point when the government cut the excise,” he said.

“We’re nowhere near where we were when we hit those record high levels.

“It is obviously expensive, more expensive than we want it to be, but it’s nowhere near those levels.”

Mr Khoury urged motorists to check fuel prices in real-time and shop around for savings when filling up.

About one fifth of the world’s oil transits through the Strait of Hormuz, with fighting between the two countries centring on control for the key shipping route.