Unlike petrol prices in a number of major metropolitan cities, prices in most country towns do not generally move in cycles. They tend to remain broadly stable over the week and there is generally no price support provided by suppliers.
The major determinants of country prices are movements in the price of international product and the exchange rate. These movements tend to influence country prices with a lag compared with metropolitan prices. This is because fuel stocks are replenished less often in the country where less fuel is sold.
It can be misleading to compare country prices with the low point of a metropolitan price cycle. This low price is probably unsustainable, with metropolitan retailers possibly only breaking even or making losses. A more accurate comparison is to compare prices over a longer period (e.g. a month) so that the effect of the price cycles in metropolitan areas can be averaged out.
Data on country prices
Data on country petrol prices is available from a number of sources on the internet. These are listed below.
Important notice: The ACCC is not responsible for the quality, validity or accuracy of information published on these websites.
Information on prices at Caltex and Ampol service stations at 2200 sites across Australia, covering metropolitan and rural and regional towns, is available on the Travelmate website.
The Western Australian Fuelwatch website provides information on prices at specific service stations in 53 regional locations. There is also information on the best and average prices in seven major country towns and a list of the best 50 unleaded petrol prices in non-metropolitan areas.
Weekly
The Australian Institute of Petroleum has average weekly retail prices for unleaded petrol for 98 country towns throughout Australia (as well as the eight capital cities). These prices are based on information supplied by BP and Caltex. There are also charts showing movements in the weekly average price for the past 12 weeks in these towns.
The Northern Territory Fuelwatch website provides average weekly petrol prices for four country towns (Alice Springs, Katherine, Nhulunbuy and Tennant Creek) as well as Darwin/Palmerston. A chart showing the movements in unleaded petrol prices in these towns for the last fifteen weeks is also included.
Monthly
The Australian Automobile Association provides monthly data on petrol prices in 98 country towns throughout Australia. Historical data is available back to April 1998.
The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland provides monthly data on 21 country towns and regions in Queensland. The data is available for the previous nine months.
The Caltex website has information on average monthly prices for 'city' and 'country' for each state and territory, based on prices set by Ampol and Caltex dealers at the pump. These prices are broken down into their various components (including import parity indicator, GST and freight). There is no information available on prices for specific country towns. Data is available back to January 1997.
Why are country prices higher than city prices?
In 1996 the ACCC held an inquiry into the petroleum products declaration and one of the issues considered was the difference between city and country petrol prices.
The ACCC found that the country generally had higher petrol prices because of a combination of:
higher freight costs
lower volume throughput
less diversity of revenue sources for country outlets
higher retail margins
lower levels of competition
the absence of independent retail chains
the general absence of wholesale and retail price discounting
regular and sometimes deep wholesale price discounting in capital cities which cause differences with country areas to expand
the greater likelihood of conscious price parallelism and possible collusion existing between country dealers and distributors
availability of some 'under-the-canopy' discounts and the extent of oil company card sales which can result in retailers applying higher pump prices to offset these effects.
More details can be found in chapter 7 of the ACCC's 1996 report, Inquiry into the petroleum products declaration.
The ACCC permits interested parties to download information published on this site for the specified purpose of increasing community awareness about changes in petrol prices.
