Yeah, I think we just need to get used to fuel costing us a lot more in the future. Will be $2 a litre before the end of 2009 I reckon.

The oil price hit a new record high of US$145.15 a few hours ago in Asia. The petrol price should get close to $1.80 a litre (regular 91 RON) in capital cities about a fortnight from now. People will get used to it though, just like in Europe where it has been over A$2 a litre for a few years. When we see $2 a litre over here, I hope traffic congestion will ease a bit.

“What I think is ridiculous though is that diesel is so expensive”

This is a shame since diesel cars are always a few grand more than their petrol versions. The high price is wiping out almost any savings for diesel cars at the moment. The spike, if it is a spike is apparently due to China’s high demand for diesel, which is been driven by their need to generate power from diesel generators. So lets see what happens to the price by the close of 2008.

As for the price of petrol, it only ever goes up on average. The recent prices are surging quicker than expected. In January and on the AGE recently I’ve heard 2 Oil Analysts claim oil will be $60-100 by the close of the year! Yeah right, they obviously don’t realise that OPEC don’t give a sh*t what we pay at the pump.

But look on the bright side, i’ve never seen so many carefully driven HSV’s until recently. I even passed an WRX Sti last week who also had a bad case of granny driving!!!

We are in spiralling into recession people. Hang tight. High fuel prices, high food prices, high rent prices, high interest rates, and salaries cant keep up.

Macca, NZ$2.13 only equals AU$1.68 so it’s not that bad.

We have not yet reached the level of petrol prices that we saw in 1971 and 1979, where the price of oil quadrupled.
The current price of oil relative to world GDP is below where it was in 1979 and 1971 (not a lot below, but still not as bad). $200 per barrel would represent the quadrupled figure this time around, and probably about $2.30 per litre.

Once it gets there, which I’m sure it will, we’ll see economies around the world responding. There may be minor recessions in some countries, but I doubt it. Why? The world’s people are breeding like rabbits, that’s why. They are breeding fast enough to keep countries out of recession just as a result of feeding them, let alone the demand for clothing, education, etc.

I’ve lived long enough to have been through both previous quadruplings, and I can confidently say everyone will live through this one as well.

Remember that even if all our disposable income went on food, we could still afford to cut the Aussie food bill in half, which might cut the cost of clothing since there would be fewer acre-asses and a garment could be made with half the fabric.

Phil C…..you forgot to mention that 1 litre of diesel will make your car travel a lot further than a litre of petrol, even the similar priced high octane petrol can’t compete! that’s how Co2 emissions are measured not you’re way!

Reckless1 u ave the vision m8
the diesel price is absolutely out of control
as a farmer it is harder and harder to pay the fuel bill every time we get a bulk load of 1000 liters for ‘farm use’ luckily we are getting a rebate of some 20 to 30 cents a liter, but that really doesn’t do much at all, just brings it back to the price it was a few months ago.
Plus there is a hell of a lot of tractors getting used this year to put in, as everyone is taking advantage of the high grain prices being paid. There is a heck of a lot of dollars that goes into growing a crop and to the hectare of the profits the fuel takes about a third of that then theres fertilizer and seed that takes another third out of the profits then there not much left after that. I can see a lot of cropping farmers going out of the farming game as the high diesel price gets even higher and fertilizer prices getting higher (just this week I heard about the price of a form of fertilizer MAP being @ $1600 a tonne, that is double what we paid for ours 4 months ago, it’s just gone crazy!
Lucky I don’t have John Deere’s in my shed

At least LPG is still relatively affordable at 70c a litre. Bring on Hyundai’s LPG hybrid now!

Hey diesel’s equivalent of Au$2.67/litre here UK. I can remember the big D was $1.18 when I was living in Mel 2years ago. Thats about a 60% increase, conversly diesel has only risen about 50% here.
I do not believe the price will ever fall much but should level out over the next few months. The Asian demend has caused the price to rise, subsequently all their exports will rise in cost reducing the demand to the price should then stabilise. Don’t panick but don’t expect it to go down.

Hans – that 70c/litre for LPG cost more relatively as you’ll only go 60%(??) of the distance on LPG than petrol. therefore your LPG cost the equivilent of about $1.16/litre taking the distance you can go on it into account.
Just noted LPG has 26.8MJ/litre; petrol (regular) 34.8MJ/Litre and diesel has 38.6MJ/litre.

That Yaris was one thirsty, uncomfortable ***************!

I never managed to get even close to the claimed fuel consumption figures….as for the Ford i manage to get the claimed figure constantly!!!

I agree Carl, Its very easy to achieve 8L/100 or less if your really being mindful of fuel consumption in an E-Gas falcon. Not to mention an E-Gas falcon has a lot more power than a Yaris. I paid 59.9/L yesterday!! how awesome is that?!

Hmm anyone noticed less stories of Hoons on the news? Fuel Prices are working!!!

I grew up in rural tassie and I remember that petrol there broke through $1 a litre about a year earlier than the mainland, so it was grimly amusing to hear on the news sydney people going crazy over petrol passing $1 a litre and the woe and misery of it all when it was old news to us. I can only imagine that it would be same now for rural communities.

The only real light at the end of the tunnel is that petrol and diesel prices will eventually have to plateu, as alternative methods of production become sufficiently profitable to entice oil companies to switch methodology of oil production. Mainly things like algae-based bio-diesel production.

Though everyone smashes the oil companies and OPEC specifically for the price of oil, remember OPEC sell their oil on the free market, and the free market sets the price. Where OPEC can and do screw people is by setting production levels, if they want prices to go up, simply produce less and people will have to pay more to get the smaller amounts of oil on the market.

A large part of the increase in oil prices comes from market speculators and future fund firms. Its because of these groups that when there is say grumblings over Libya’s goat market the price of oil goes up $5. They profit from increasing price of oil, as they buy oil at todays lower price, and then sell to large companies and industry future contracts whereby they’ll say ‘for the next 6 months I’ll sell you oil for $150 a barrel’, even though the current price may be $145. Industry like this because its makes their business bottom line less volatile. The effect is that large amounts of oil and removed from the market at above the going price, which forces prices upward as there is less oil available. So the price of oil is artificially increased beyond what normal supply and demand mechanisms would allow.

So are they solely responsible for oil prices increases? No, not even close. Its a combined affect of rising cost of oil production combined with artificial increases due to future funds and market speculators, and OPECs interest in future preservation. OPEC knows it has limited oil, so its in their interest to keep production low enough to maximise their viable duration of their supplies but high enough to not cause the price to go up so much that their is a mass market shift against oil.

Unfortunately for us, the interests of market speculators, future funds and OPEC clash directly with our interests as both an industrial country, and as motorists.

As some market watcher put it, if you think that infinite growth in a finite world is sustainable, then you’re crazy. The solution is to find a source of energy that is much closer to infinite than our very finite amounts of oil in the ground. When all those methods become more profitable compared to current oil production methods, then thats where the price of energy and oil will plateu.

Lazybones…yes i considered depreciation that’s why i didn’t buy a new one, i bought one with 16,000Ks and 10 months old for 25 grand so the worst depreciation was payed by the previous owner and from now on the Falcon and Yaris will depreciate similarly…..anyway my back pain has no price and the Yaris has such a harsh ride compared to the falcon that no amount of depreciation can sour the joy driving it!!

Also the Falcon is cheaper to service than the Yaris and every 15,000Ks the Yaris was every 10,000Ks but obviously the tyres will cost a bit more but like i said not needing a chiropractor anymore is priceless…LOL