Petrol to hit $1.50 per litre
January 3, 2008 by Matt Brogan
In what may be an ominous sign of things to come, petrol prices are set to hit a record $1.50 litre mean average within the next week.
Oil prices again hit the $100USD per barrel mark last night driving the pump price up as demand continues to outstrip supply.
The current pump average in Sydney is $1.44 whilst outer suburbs are already paying $1.50. Melbourne is paying well in to the $1.40 mark in what may soon become the norm considering political tensions in oil producing nations and heavy demand from new industrial giants like China and India.
Not only is the concern centred around the price of petrol, but the flow on (pardon the pun) affect of increased inflation and therefore higher interest rates.
CarAdvice looks forward to hearing your views in our comments section, and perhaps what you’re paying for fuel in your part of the country.
Print it: 
****PRIMO!*****
Yeap, saw it went through the US$100 barrier.
Time that Rudd cuts the excise on fuel.
If ULP is $1.50cpl, DIEsel will be $1.60cpl
NOT good, need to getg into a LPG vehicle ASAP
Cheers
F-0
$1.35 in Bundaberg (Qld) for standard unleaded
It’s even worse when you have to use Premium Unleaded (PULP). Payed $1.56 in South Melbourne this morning.
Filled up yesterday (Wednesday 2/1/08) at Gymea Shell at about 6:00PM and the guy inside said that the prices jumped 18cents to $1.47/L in the last 5minutes and that I had just missed it…thanks very much buddy…
I asked him if an oil rig had exploded justifying the price rise and he replied “Oh no sir, I just get the phone call to put it up”
I agree that Rudd needs to cut the excise.
- Benny J
Cutting the excise on fuel will only provide a temporary relief from high prices. What we need is more efficient cars for the masses and the Hyundai i30 is a great start.
Fuel will continue to climb regardless of whether Rudd cuts the excise because it is running out. Simple as that.
What I can’t understand is all the folks buying massive 4WDs and then complaining about the price of fuel. You knew what you were getting yourself into. And if you didn’t, you are an idiot.
If Rudd cut the excise, the oil companies would immediately increase the price to cover it.
That would mean far less money in the Gov’t coffers (not that that would hurt, since Howard fleeced us pretty well so the coffers are well and truly overflowing, and far more money in the oil giants’ pockets, and NO saving for us.
Forget the stupid schoolboy dream of reduced excise, and get used to the fact that petrol will soon be $2.00 a litre. Europeans have been paying twice what we pay for many years, and their economies work around it. Ours will have to as well.
Why a Hyundai i30?Whats so special about it?
A Yaris and a Mazda 2 are better engineered and better made and also more fuel economical vehicles, with better resale to boot.
Its better than GM’H’s Barina though!
Yes Koreans have come a long way, NO NO NO they are not at the level of the Japanese, the Japs wont let them:-)
If you refering to DIEsel, its 10-cents more, and around $2k more, take years and many many km’s to make it back
Excise is currently 37-cents, Rudd does not have to give it all away, maybe just 20-cents.
The BEST solution is LPG, end of story [Esp. since Rudd still gives you $2k to have it fitted!]
Cheers
F-0
F-0
“Cutting the excise on fuel will only provide a temporary relief from high prices. What we need is more efficient cars for the masses and the Hyundai i30 is a great start.”
Yup spot on, the duty should be invested in future technologies.
Anyway if you think $1.50 is bad, I was paying $2.50 per ltr in the UK in 2005!! Trust me, there is still plenty of room for price hikes.
I heard an analyst on SkyNews claim, petrol would be about $60-$70 per barrel by the end of 2008. Personally i thinks he’s dreaming!! or working for Holden.
Frugal One: The Yaris and Mazda 2 are much smaller cars that have no hope in hell of fitting a family of 4 and all their stuff into them. An i30 on the other hand can.
Removing the excise is akin to cutting income taxes, all it will do is increase spending in other areas and interest rates will go up creating more burdensome costs elsewhere. It may also increase demand for fuel, which will drive prices straight back up.
I can tell you now oil is not running out. Oil companies state how much crude oil is refined per day to create a situation like now where they say there is a shortage whereas the truth is there is a shortage of refined product. There are millions of barrels of crude in sotrage all over the world just waiting to be processed but the oil companies are restricting production.
What if oil is running out?
Whether you believe in peak oil or not – one fact remains – Oil production around the world from all oil fields has been in decline since 2005. No new large oil reserves have been found and domestic consumption of oil in the middle east has increased by 70%. We have to compete with every other country in buying oil from the middle east. The highest bidder wins. I don’t think Australia has the money to out-bid the US, China and Russia.
I think you will find that within another two years – petrol will be at over $5 per litre. Not only will it be more exspensive – it will also be in short supply, so that will mean long queues at the servo.
Just stop for a minute and think about what affect that will have …. on everything. Taking the kids to school – getting pineapples trucked from Qld – flying to Darwin – driving to work from the outer suburbs.
If oil prices are set to rise in the coming years (and I think they are) – our governments and car companies don’t seem to be doing much about it.
What can the goverment do??
Thats great Stu maybe ill drive from Melbourne to Bundaberg and fill up! Whaddya reckon? LOL….
I paid $1.55 last night for BP Ultimate in brisie, not taking my car for a drive anymore!
frugal one,
you will find that the Hyundai i30 actually drinks around 1.5L LESS/100k than the yaris and mazda 2 class vehciles
but i do agree that LPG is by far the way to go to overcome the steep petrol prices.
Did you guys know that when they fitted a decent LPG system fitted to a Ford Territory (like the ones expected to be fitted to the orion range) that a the Territory was cheaper to fuel than a Toyota Prius!!!!
it also means no power decrease and in some cases a power INCREASE plus you can still drive a realistic sized car.
Also by the time you add LPG to a Territory for eg it would still be no dearer than a Prius
hey 280ZX,
when you head up to bundy can you bring me back a few jerry cans of fuel?
Cheers
Glen
Just to reply to your comments:
If oil companies are creating a shortage – this will only increase the price of fuel.
There are millions of barrels (actually billions) of oil in storage. I don’t know what Australia’s figures are – but I do have the US figures –
The US has an estimated 2.6 billion barrels of oil in it’s inventory. Last year at the same time, inventories were 125 million barrels. If the US stops importing any oil – it’s inventory will last 50 days – I’ll repeat that … 50 days. That’s how much is consumed domestically within the US. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/st...../Fig11.gif
OPEC decided in December 2007 to maintain its existing production quotas, noting that, in its view, the global oil market continued to be well supplied.
The question is – are they maintain its existing production quotas to increase the price – or are they just unable to increase the extraction of oil from the ground.
If they are increasing the price of oil artificially – they run the risk of losing the market all together as it created a market for bio fuels.
Either way – it’s all pointing to higher fuel prices. As I said earlier – and I know that sound crazy – but I really think we are looking at $5 fuel in two years.
By this time next year, $1.50 a litre might seem cheap. Either that, or we would have gotten used to $1.50 a litre, just as we have gotten used to $1.30 a litre a year ago.
Adam (Aka Mada) – there is a lot that governments can do:
Stop wasting money on old warships for the Navy and pump some money into the best asset this country have – CSIRO. Let those guys come up with some ideas that we can sell (export) and make money to buy new warships.
Put a tax on high fuel consumption engines – This will force people to use more fuel efficient cars.
Get local councils to build/design suburbs that do not require a car to get around. If you live in any outer suburb in Australia – you need a car you get to work – get to the shops or go out for entertainment. With better design – it would not require someone to use the car all the time.
The best thing that could happen for the cities would be for the fuel to hit $6 per litre. That will get people out of cars and in public transit and onto 2 wheeled vehicles. The building of new tunnels, bridges, highways and roads is fundamentally flawed.
a way that u can save som cash on the petrol bill is by doing litle mods to ur car for eg:air inductions give better fuel ecconomy, exhaust makes the engine breath better=more km’s on a tank=saving in pocket, litle things like that help out in a big way
I think we should concentrate on diesel…
Correct me if I am wrong but as far as I know, diesel is the resulting byproduct of the making of petrol.
This should mean the cost of diesel production would be minimal compared the cost of producing petrol.
why is it more expensive than ULP?
Maybe we should all just change the compression of our engines and all run on AV GAS! Im sure thats still cheaper!Plus it smells great……..
Peak oil,
the government has already implemented some of your suggestions.
they are now going to slug you on vehicles that arent environmentally friendly ie drink more fuel.
also here in QLD there is one estate that does promote itself as residents being able to walk to everything. and its not a 300house estate, it is massive with apparently 15yrs of development left in it.
it has a Uni and absolutely massive shopping centre all incorporated. also soon to include hospital etc aswell
Alex,
if the government put prices upto $6 per L for eg imagine what would happen for businesses. we would also be paying for it through our extra grocery costs etc.
i for one can not work with out my vehicle and there are many like my selves that would not see that as a sensible move
Once again LPG anyone HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
then we say bye bye to the world oil governing body.
Time to move to Venezuela, petrol is US$0.17 C E N T S per US-GALLON,[3.785L] that =’s AUS$0.05cpl!!!
Yes its subsdised by the GovCo big time, this is what happen when the GovCo evev THINKS of putting the price up:
“When Venezuela raised fuel prices in 1989 as part of an austerity move, it pushed up bus fares and crystallized anger among the poor, setting off riots. Soldiers and police clashed with rioters, leaving more than 300 people dead, according to official estimates. Human-rights groups put the toll much higher.”
Venezuela also is well know as “Miss World Factory”.
Time to move? :-)
Cheers
F-0
Nick – I agree with you – diesel is our best short term solution. But it comes from oil so it too will become expensive. The best thing about diesel is that you can go more km per litre.
And yes – why is diesel more expensive than petrol? Diesel takes less refinement than petrol – so you would think that diesel would be cheaper to manufacture.
Alex – could you imagine fuel at $6 and only a couple of cars on the road. It would be like the traffic levels of the 1950’s. We would have all these roads everywhere – but no train lines in places where people need them. We could even see in 10 years governments ripping up roads to build new railways. The last railway to be built in Melbourne was in 1932. City is a bit different now. We really need to look at public transport in all capital cities.
Let’s hope that some boffins somewhere in the world design a new power source that’s really cheap and environmentally friendly and these issue will not arise.
No worries Andrew M but it wont be fuel ill be filling the jerry cans with (well sort of fuel)anybody want to chip in for fuel and ill bring back some bundy !
Andrew M
Good to hear Qld is showing the rest of Australia how to do it. Hope people here in Vic take notes.
On you last comment about LPG – or Liquid Petroleum Gas. As this is a by-product in the manufacture of petroleum (petrol) – how does that help?
And yes – if fuel goes to $6 – transport will be hit very hard. This would mean that food will need to be grown locally as the cost of trucking it in would be to costly. $6 fuel radically changes the world we live in.
People are going to be driving petrol powered cars for a very long time, I for one will keep driving my VE HSV R8 no matter what the cost, thats my choice,its all relative to the cost of living, everything else will go up due to transport costs, but so will wages so its all proportional.
Those nannys on this site that get off on cars like a Prirus need to go and do some knitting somewhere else and stop polluting an enthuiasts site with your crap.
“Plus it smells great……..”
Bav, I’m very concerned about your state of mind!! Have you been hanging out near the airport again?? :)
I have told you time and time again BM stop hanging around the glue factories!
Hey Lazybones……….you don’t spend enough time on here any more!! Although I seem to spend a lot of time at the Airports its always dropping someone off…..no sniffing!!!!!
We have a special license that enables us to buy it in 44 gallon drums though ,so no need for the Airport anymore!
Thanks for your concern though!!hahaha
“Those nannys on this site that get off on cars like a Prirus (sic) need to go and do some knitting somewhere else and stop polluting an enthuiasts (sic) site with your crap.”
I don’t think there is a single person on this site that ‘gets off’ on the Toyota Prius (Toyota Paul may be an exception :) ). There are, however, people who are looking to the future and realise that we all need to do what we can to reduce our consumption of oil. The Prius is one way, changing to diesel is another or driving less is another. This will help oil to stay around longer while we come up with other methods of personal transport that don’t consume dino juice.
Keeping oil reserves around longer will mean that when someone wants to take their Phase III or HQ Monaro for a spin in 50 years time, it will still go. If we use it all up now, what will happen to these great pieces of automotive history…
“I for one will keep driving my VE HSV R8 no matter what the cost”
Sure, that is your choice. My choice is to believe that you are a bogan. See, choice is good in this world. But when oil runs out, we won’t have that choice anymore.
And anyway, this site is a site for anyone interested in cars, not just those who love low-tech pushrod V8s. Being a car enthusiast doesn’t mean you just love fast cars, it means appreciating all sorts of cars, fast or slow, big or small.
280ZX……….you still getting over XMAS and New Year!!I was only thinking where you had got to this morning!
You haven’t been trying GOOGLE EARTH me in the Pool again have you…….hehehe
The best short term answer for the shortage of oil (which there isn’t) is more likely to be ethanol or methanol. Now I said short term because the best long term solution will be hydrogen. I dont think electric powered cars are viable for at least 30 years mainly because the whole infrastructure of cars is the internal combustion engine. If we all changed to electric cars then motor mechanics would have to basically be retrained over night. Plus the range of an electric powered vehicle is still no where near good enough for countries like ours or the USA.
The production of alcohol based fuels can be done right now but we’ll need dedicated crops of sugar & corn to do it. Hence why we have E10 & E85 fuels now. It wont be long until there is pure ethanol at bowsers & cars able to use it. The biggest hurdle with alcohol fuels is the amount of water that can get in the fuel.
Supercujo…..I’m with you!
Ive given up even looking at what it costs!
Oh you have missed TP new and best mate………Mikka and UK BOY!!!!
Ethanol IS NOT THE solution to the world’s oil shortage.
To produce ethanol, you need to change over previously fertile ground that produced food for us humans to a paddock that produces fuel for cars. Where does the food that used to be produced get grown then?
With the world’s population growing still, converting food producing land area to producing fuel is just plain silly. All it will do is drive up the price of crops which will make fuel expensive and also our food.
And using feed crops to produce ethanol is extremely inefficient, corn only produces 3100-3900 litres of ethanol per hectare because only the kernel can be used for fermentation and sugar only 5300-6500 litres per hectare but can only be grown in tropical areas. If ethanol is to be used as a serious fuel, more work need to be done on the processing of high cellulose plant matter such as those from hemp, poplar and wild grasses. The bonus is that hemp and the wild grasses can grow in a wider range of environment that corn and sugar can grow making it easier to find suitable land. But as I said, it all relies on better technology that hasn’t arrived yet.
Alex,
The Public transport system sucks balls man! have you ever caught a train at Peak hour in Sydney? its always like a sardine can!
How do you expect more people to catch the train when the system can’t even handle the load of people who already catch the train every day?
Buses are even worse and the routes they take are bizzare in nature.
I think we’ll all just have to quite work and go on the doll…it pays less but we’d save more!
Glen said –
” The best short term answer for the shortage of oil (which there isn’t)”
Where is the evidence? The only thing I can see is OPEC saying they have plenty of oil – but that does not reflect the actual real data showing oil supplies in decline, such as Mexico’s Cantarell oil field declining over 15% pa. The Cantarell oil field is the third largest in the world.
I cannot find any info out there to back anyones claims that there is plenty of oil. All I can find is oil consumption going up and supply falling.
“its all relative to the cost of living, everything else will go up due to transport costs, but so will wages so its all proportional”
In Economics it’s called inflation. When you have inflation you have less jobs. If you still have a job – you can buy expensive dino juice for your VE HSV R8.
Lets face it, we are all soon going to have to bore holes in our car floors and make like the flinstones…
Peak Oil your posts are claptrap. To you and all the other doom and gloom merchants out there, oil is not running out. If it was government’s all around the world would be rationing it to keep a supply for two important reasons, defence and food production.
We can also be sure of one thing, and that is that some nerd in a white coat in a laboratory will discover an alternative. Dont underestimate the ability of the human race to find a solution.
Right now that V10 Volkswagen Toureg is looking good.
God BM you read my thoughts better than i do ? Yeah cant remember much so must have been good! Petrol around the corner $1.42 hmmmm? And be greatfull people with your coles and safeway vouchers Haaaaa NOT!
Supercujo, I said its the best SHORT TERM solution. Not THE solution. I think methanol would actually be more viable to produce considering it is made from wood pulp, so waste wood from timber mills could be used for the production of methanol. But in anycase no matter what other energy source you use instead of oil based something drastic will change. If we all drove plug-in electric cars the amount of energy needed from power stations would be increased, so more pollution there (although nuclear power plants would help there but then everyone gets a bit funny when you mention those words) so if you want change you’ll have to sacrifice something.
And as I said b4 Hydrogen is more or less where we need to head. The technology is not far away to use it (Honda are releasing a hydrogen fuel cell car) and it will have the least environmental impact of all considering the only byproduct is water which can then be reconstituted into hydrogen & oxygen again.
OPEC is the one saying there is a shortage, to drive up prices.
Spitfire
I’m with you – let all hope it’s claptrap.
Glen
Opec have said there is PLENTY of oil in the ground – but maintain its existing production quotas, noting that, in its view, the global oil market continued to be well supplied.
———-
Do we have lot’s of oil or are we running out?
There are plenty of people saying they THINK there is lots of oil and there are people who THINK we are running out. I’m not really interest in anyone opinion – what are the facts?
The only hard facts I can find is a world decline in oil output from all oil fields.
There always seem to be “experts” that are polarised on controversial topics, and most people seem to have wedged themselves into a particular point of view and refuse to budge.
Some of the suggestions here are laughable and suggest to me we, as a country, are in trouble if these comments are representative of the views held by our policy makers.
Any alternative fuel chosen as the only successor to so-called fossil fuels will immediately become more expensive as a result.
Just as well they haven’t invented a car that runs on water, otherwise we’d all be screwed.
I think the approach to minimising our reliance on fossil fuels should, and will, be multi-faceted. From more economical fuel burners, to alternative fuels, to alternative transport.
On the topic of public transport:
Simply saying that we should raise the price of petrol so that we all use pubic transport (pun intended) would be fine if our transport systems were up to scratch. But they aren’t. Nothing like European systems, even in dodgy Eastern European, former communist countries like Poland.
They build something 10 years too late, let it fall into disrepair and forget to factor in growth, eventually causing congestion on roads AND public transport such as trains. Is this not the pattern of public transport in Australia in general?
I have heard the Howard federal government pushed a bill just before the 2K rebate on the LPG conversions to raise the excise of LPG 2 or 5% per year for the next 5 to 7 years (one of the reasons LPG has gone higher all of a sudden)so if you are using 1.7 litres of LPG to 1 litre of petrol then the LPG isnt going to be that far in front unless petrol goes to $6.00/ litre. Then we will have a HSV or FPV to start and roll out of the garage and back in again and a 83 diesel gemini to go anywhere else.
Petrol in Iraq was 1.5c/litre before the USA arrived to see what the problem was?
Come on Rudd cancel this Howard bill and stop robbing peter to pay paul.
Petrol at $1.50 a litre (or higher) will probably mean the falling sales of the local dinosaurs of Ford Falcons, Holden Commodores, etc. will fall even further. Time for them to pack up and leave.
I don’t know all…but what I do know is all the doom and gloom posts above are only speculation until actual facts are shown. But in reality I don’t think oil is running out any time soon and there are only supply problems pushing up prices. Keep in mind the price of oil rises due to people freaking out at “possible” supply problems like Iran, Nth Korea, Pakistan, further possible China growth, possible cyclone etc. And there are LARGE untapped oil supplies globally but you have to hunt if you want to read about it. Russia has claimed large reserves under the arctic. Reading the UK times online today an article reads of a possible major reserve under Greenland containing an estimated 110 billion barrels and a link from that story reads a fifth of the worlds oil is under the Arctic. It would make sense large oil companies and oil producing nations keeping discoveries seceret as the oil price would drop.
First of all a clarification to Andrew M’s post at 11:22 a.m. in that the Hyundai i30 is more frugal than the Yaris and Mazda 2. The diesel version of the i30 uses less than the Yaris and the Mazda 2. The petrol i30 still consumes more than the Yaris and Mazda 2.
Second is more of an observation on a recent trip to Spain in that I thought people there seemed more practical in their choice of vehicles. Most people seemed to drive small cars with diesel engines or small petrol engines. It looked, to me at least, that they (the normal average Jose/Maria) chose their vehicles based on what they actually needed. With fuel costs being what they are in Europe, it probably isn’t a big surprise. Maybe that is a possible future for us here in Australia if petrol keeps going up.
Look guys, be realistic. I think, if anything, the excise should be raised not lowered.
There should also be MANDATORY greatly increased average fuel economy quotas on all new cars sold here.
Not only for Global warming (Which I don’t think humans have caused if it is happening at all) but also to reduce usage and price of a finite resource …oil.
Everyone acts like you need big powerful cars, you don’t, you WANT them.
The Toyota Corolla is bigger inside, faster, longer lasting then a Holden EH, the family car of the 60’s
Come on be realistic.