Sydney petrol price gouge catching out motorists

These Sydney motorists are forking out as much as 30 cents a litre extra to fill up their tank and are now being urged to “top up not fill up”.

City motorists are getting slugged as much as 30 cents a litre more for petrol than their country counterparts alarming results show.

And suburban drivers are being urged to “top up not fill up” until prices fall back down to an average of 134c/l in early February.

Sydney motorists are paying up to 175.9c/l for unleaded petrol compared to some regions such as Dubbo, Moree and Broken Hill where prices are typically in the 140c/l bracket.

To fill up a 50 litre tank at 175.9c/l it costs $87.95 compared to paying to the cheapest price in Sydney yesterday of 129.5c/l at $64.75 – a difference of $23.20.

City motorists are getting slugged as much as 30 cents a litre more for petrol than their country counterparts. Picture: iStock

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said “the prices in the regions really don’t change that much”.

“In the capital cities you see price cycles where they have more dramatic price movement,” he said.

“There’s nowhere else in the world that has this movement in prices.”

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But Mr Khoury said prices have been higher than they are now in the capital cities.

“For premium fuel we almost nudged $2 when prices got really high late last year,” he said.

Figures from the Australian Institute of Petroleum found despite recent petrol price hikes in Sydney the wholesale price for unleaded fuel has fallen in the past week from $112 per barrel on January 6 compared to $104 on January 14.

But industry price monitoring service Fueltrac’s spokesman Chris Kable said city motorists don’t always get gouged.

“If you average that metropolitan price it would be lower on average than the regional areas over a petrol of a month or six weeks,” he said.

A spokesman for Viva Energy – which determines Coles Express outlet prices – said the price differences “can vary across metropolitan and regional areas, reflecting transport costs, competition and other local area factors”.

A BP spokesman also said their prices are impacted by a number of variants including “international product prices and competition between service stations in a local area.

“There are also other factors including exchange rates, taxes and operating costs.”

NSW motorists should compare prices online or via the NSW Fuel Check app which provides real-time information about petrol prices across the state.

The NSW Fuel Check app yesterday showed at 1pm the average fuel price in Sydney 153.4c/l.

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Originally published as Sydney petrol price gouge catching out motorists