Wednesday, February 05, 2020

Petrol price alert - Petrol prices in Melbourne increasing to 173.9 cents per litre for unleaded petrol

Last night I noticed the first of the Woolworths Petrol stations increasing their price to 173.9. Checking other services stations and there's spots where prices have started to increase. It looks like the current petrol price hike is starting.

With the current average gate price (think wholesale) at 126.2 this would put the price jump as one of the largest for years at nearly 50 cents (47.7 cents) above the average gate price. Something doesn't feel right. When prices were jumping 25-30 cents above the average gate price there was a lot of noise coming from the government. This time nothing. Doesn't really make much sense but that's the way it is.

For us consumers all we can do is manage when we buy or petrol. Now is the time to start watching the price of petrol and fill up around half way through the price hike part of the cycle. It's currently Wednesday so there's a good chance the price hike will complete sometime next week.

What appears to be happening however, is as the remaining petrol stations increase their prices, prices in some areas may have already dropped by perhaps 10 cents a litre, so shopping around if you need petrol can make quite a difference.

My approach is to keep an eye on the petrol prices around me, factor in when I'll be driving, how far (such as a longer trip around Melbourne) and fill up when I feel the time is right. Yes a pain, but it saves a few hundreds dollars a year. In addition I'll watch and wait and lock in the lower price using the 7 Eleven Fuel app. That way I get nearly another week at the lower prices. By then we're often around half way through the cycle and prices have dropped by half the hike. The longer you hang on at this point the greater the saving. Of course often we can't change our need to drive, but sometimes we can slow it down a bit.

With prices well under the 128 mark in quite a few areas, this has been a lower price than we've had for a while.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.PetrolPricesMelbourne.com.au


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