Australian Petrol Prices

With the fuel excise cut ending last week its expected that petrol prices will rise. However, a lot of factors go into the price we pay for petrol at the bowser, including the price of oil and the value of the Australian dollar.

To get an idea of where petrol prices might go in the next few months, I had a look at the ratio of Sydney petrol prices to oil prices converted to AUD over the last twelve months.

The impact of the excise cut comes through clearly in this analysis. Pre-excise cut, the petrol prices averaged 1.53 times the prices of oil, and never fell below 1.46 times. Following the excise cut, the ratio averaged 1.20 times and never rose above 1.32 times.

What does this mean for petrol price in October, now that the fuel excise gone back up?

While future prices largely depend on movement in the AUD and oil prices (and are much more sensitive to oil price movement), if we use the numbers from the today and the ratios we were seeing before the excise cut, we should see petrol prices in Sydney of around $2.10 per litre or around 25 cents per litre higher than they are now.