Fuel prices climbing, but not as fast as you think – unless you’re in South Australia

We’re five days into the return of the full fuel excise tax, and while most states see prices climbing, there’s no step-change yet.

Motorists who rushed to fill up their tanks before the discounted fuel excise tax ended may not have needed to, with most states experiencing only minor changes in fuel prices in the days following.

As was widely reported, the full 46-cent fuel excise returned to all pump sales last Thursday 29 September 2022.

However, rather than seeing an immediate step-change due to the additional 24-cent tax applied, most prices have only shown a minor rise.

	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA	TAS	NT	ACT	WA
Before	$1.89	$1.81	$1.84	$1.80	$1.88	$1.99	$1.92	$1.84
After	$1.93	$1.86	$1.88	$1.93	$1.91	$2.00	$1.94	$1.87
VAR	$0.04	$0.05	$0.05	$0.13	$0.03	$0.01	$0.02	$0.03
% change	2%	3%	3%	7%	2%	1%	1%	2%

Average capital city price of 95RON unleaded taken 3-days before, and 3-days after fuel excise change

This is amid global crude oil prices continuing a downward trend that started in early June.

Oil prices are now back to where they were in January 2022, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though, with all states showing average capital city prices ahead of state-based low points. All states bar Western Australia, Norther Territory and ACT saw pumps hit a low point during September (with the excise cut in play), with the Northern Territory not able to return to pre-invasion prices of $1.94 per litre of 95RON Unleaded even with the excise cut.

	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA	TAS	NT	ACT	WA
Lowest	$1.84	$1.78	$1.83	$1.76	$1.88	$1.94	$1.88	$1.81
Last seen	12-Sep	18-Sep	16-Sep	24-Sep	26-Sep	3-Mar	24-Apr	21-Apr
VAR to lowest	$0.09	$0.09	$0.07	$0.18	$0.04	$0.06	$0.06	$0.07

Lowest price of 95RON unleaded in capital city of each state and rise to latest prices at 2-Oct-22

Again, the increases haven’t been too severe, except in South Australia which has seen prices climb $0.18 or 10 per cent in just one week.

In early September, Australia’s top consumer watchdog, the ACCC, warned fuel retailers against passing on the full tax immediately, with promises it would be watching the price of petrol and diesel closely.

Despite the fuel excise being imposed on fuel ‘sold’ to motorists rather than purchased by service station operators, we expect to see these figures rise over the coming days, before normalising again.

We’ll keep track of the prices each day, and also update our prediction tool to give an indication of when we’ll see prices trending downward again, even with the excise in play.

Read all our fuel news here

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