Service station workers are reportedly being abused by customers frustrated over soaring petrol prices, as the government says a “very low” number of regional outlets are experiencing shortages.

“We’ve had a lot of reports of service station attendants and staff being harassed,” Motor Trades Association interim executive director Peter Jones, who represents independent service stations, told AAP.

“They are not the people that make the price. They are the people who serve somebody who’s just bought it.

“In rural areas where there is no fuel, whether it be diesel or petrol, emotions are relatively high … we’ve asked for people to be respectful.”

The closure of important oil corridor the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing war in Iran has seen fuel prices surge in Australia, with the consumer watchdog ACCC this week launching a probe into claims of anti-competitive behaviour by major fuel companies.

In a social media post hitting out at the federal government over “price gouging” claims, Tasmanian independent fuel distributor Tas Petroleum said its staff were also being abused daily, while some sites had been vandalised.

“And unbelievably we have even received a message from someone threatening to blow up our office,” it said.

Petrol stations in regional areas have been reporting a lack of fuel at the bowser, despite Energy Minister Chris Bowen saying all ships supplying oil to Australia were arriving as scheduled.

“Our fuel supply remains as it did before the bombing of Iran,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

“The challenge we have is that demand remains very, very high … doubled in a couple of days – any supply chain for any commodity is going to struggle with that.

“We’re seeing that across the country, particularly rural and regional areas, the number of service stations, or percentage of service stations that are full out of fuel, is very low as a percentage of the service stations across the country.

“(It’s in the) low single digits, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a real challenge for having trouble getting fuel in rural and regional areas.”

Bowen said it would still take time for the additional 500 million litres of petrol and diesel being released from reserves to flow through to service stations across the country.

The energy minister is set to meet with state and territory counterparts later on Friday on energy supply issues following the Middle East conflict.

Deputy opposition leader Jane Hume said while she was pleased a fuel tsar had been appointed by national cabinet to oversee supply issues, more needed to be done.

State and federal governments on Thursday appointed former Australian Energy Regulator boss Anthea Harris to oversee a fuel supply task force.

“The fuel tsar would be entirely unnecessary if Chris Bowen was doing his job from day one,” Hume told Seven’s Sunrise program.

“We need to secure the supplies, certainly make sure that the distribution networks are working in every state.”

Jones said the smaller independent service stations he represented were only making a few cents a litre and dealing with massive wholesale cost increases.

“So what somebody might think of as price gouging, it’s just handing on the increase of price or cost to them,” Jones said.

–with AAP