It was quite evident that something was going to happen in the Middle East, the US didn’t send the Gerald R Ford over for nothing. Anyone whose oil tank was running low would have been prudent to order well before it all kicked off.
I routinely order each October and February anyway, and start looking at price trends at the beginning of the month, getting a few online quotes and/or checking the graph on eg Cheapest Oil. Early in the week is often cheaper than a Friday.
I ordered mine on 17 February, just before the Gerald R Ford reached the Mediterranean. I’m not tied in to a particular supplier but my usual preferred one matched my lowest online quote, £293 for 500 litres. Perhaps it will still be very high when I next order, and that can’t be helped, but it just seems mad for people not to have seen the hike coming and ordered before they were desperately low.
Ditto petrol or diesel, I filled my car cheaply a week ago yesterday, I always fill it when there’s about 100 miles left in the tank (about 1/4 full). Why were people waiting until until this last weekend, if their car was low already? I get that very high mileage means filling a lot more often than my monthly fill-up, but people seem so incapable of forward planning.