Australia is seeing some panic buying at gas stations amid supply fears due to the Middle East conflict, with fuel prices hitting fresh record highs even as authorities take steps to secure energy resources and distribution channels.

The average price of premium 95 gasoline across New South Wales state hit A$2.58 ($1.79) a liter on March 23, topping the recent high of A$2.27 for the same fuel grade 12 days earlier, according to figures from the state's fuel price monitoring platform.

Gas stations across the country are displaying higher prices, limiting fuel refills and putting up signs warning against fuel hoarding. Panic buying is causing shortages at some stations, especially outside cities, national broadcaster ABC said.

Adequate fuel supplies are still flowing into the country, authorities were quoted as saying, urging consumers not to resort to panic buying.

Australia gets most of its gasoline and diesel from refineries in the Asia-Pacific, but those refineries faced disruptions in crude oil supply from the Middle East due to effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Lurion De Mello, senior lecturer in finance at Macquarie University, said via the Scimex research portal that stockpiling, whether by households or farmers, "risks creating the very shortages we are worried about", adding that gasoline supplies remain relatively secure.

But Australia may be more exposed to disruptions in diesel supplies, which depend significantly on refineries in the region, "and any interruption in their crude oil intake will flow through globally", he said.

"What we are seeing now is primarily an upstream supply disruption. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz and the reduction in regional energy production tighten global oil supply, which can rapidly push prices higher across transport, logistics and production systems," Ben Fahimnia, professor of supply chain management at the University of Sydney, said.

"Panic buying at the consumer level only worsens this situation. When consumers suddenly increase purchases, retailers interpret that behavior as a surge in demand and place larger orders upstream," Fahimnia said.

On March 23, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with the International Energy Agency's Executive Director Fatih Birol and said that the government had released 20 percent of its fuel reserves in line with agency recommendations.

"The global turbulence, of course, is having an impact right around the world, and it requires a national response," Albanese said, adding that a range of other measures have been undertaken "to ensure that we secure supply and also that we deal with distribution issues".

Albanese earlier said that a fuel supply taskforce is being established, covering fuel security and supply chain resilience nationwide.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the taskforce led by a designated coordinator is "the next step in preparing and responding to the supply chain challenges coming from overseas".

Meanwhile, with the conflict in the Middle East also disrupting liquefied natural gas supplies globally, resulting in a surge in international prices of the fuel, the Australian government is looking at a "windfall tax" on the nation's LNG industry, ABC reported. Australia is the world's third-largest LNG exporter.