Push for city fuel rationing to keep regions motoring

Australian fuel transport companies are backing a push to ration fuel in cities to reserve supply for regional areas as businesses run dry.

Up to 762 million litres of petrol and diesel from the emergency reserves of companies will be released to address shortfalls in regional areas, the federal government said on Friday.

Iran has closed one of the world's busiest oil corridors - the Strait of Hormuz - in response to the US-led war launched against it, causing a global shortage that has led fuel prices to skyrocket.

Fuel should have already been reserved for the regions, said Westlink Petroleum managing director Danny Kreutzer, whose Queensland-based company transports fuel for 500 businesses.

"We've got a lot of angry customers that want their fuel," he told AAP.

"A lot of them have been pretty good to deal with and understand the situation that we're in.

"Every other fuel distributor in the country, we're all the same. It's really impacted our business, because we just can't get the volume we require on a normal day."

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has raised the prospect of rationing fuel in the cities to help address supply issues.

"It is a crisis," he told ABC Radio on Friday.

Mr Joyce said trucks had to be kept moving to ensure food remained on supermarket shelves and other vital infrastructure could be serviced.

Mr Kreutzer said conflict in the Middle East had made the situation so volatile oil companies and wholesalers didn't know what price to charge his business for fuel, because they "don't know whether they're making money or losing money".

The consumer watchdog has told fuel retailers to respond to claims they dramatically hiked petrol and diesel prices soon after war broke out in the Middle East.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen has repeatedly assured federal parliament Australia has enough fuel.

He has said panic-buying motorists were behind supply issues and soaring prices.

Mr Bowen and motoring associations are pleading with people to stop stockpiling fuel, labelling behaviour seeking to profiteer off the situation "un-Australian".

Australia has relaxed quality standards for the next 60 days in a bid to boost the domestic market.

The minister rejected Mr Joyce's proposal to ration fuel in metropolitan areas.

Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan has accused Mr Bowen of deploying ad-hoc measures in response to the supply and price crunch.