Fuel prices U-turn across New Zealand and start to fall

Friday, 7 June 2024

The five cheapest petrol stations were in Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury with Unleaded 91 priced at around $2.40.

Unleaded 91 fell 20 cents over the past 28 days to $2.70 per litre.

The price of Diesel fell 14 cents to $2.03 per litre in the last 28 days.

Fuel prices have done a U-turn across New Zealand and are beginning to drop after rising for the first four months of the year.

Data released by Gaspy, New Zealand’s fuel price repository, revealed the price of Unleaded 91 fell 20 cents over the past 28 days to $2.70 per litre.

Petrol prices across New Zealand are falling as a result of a drop in global crude oil prices.

This is after it rose by 26 cents per litre at the start of the year to April.

The price of Diesel fell 14 cents to $2.03 per litre in the last 28 days. Unleaded 95 fell 19 cents to $2.90 per litre and Unleaded 98 fell 16 cents to $3.04 per litre.

The five cheapest petrol stations were in Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury with Unloaded 91 priced at around $2.40.

Christina Leung is the chief economist at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.

She said the recent decline in petrol prices at the pump in New Zealand reflects the drop in global crude oil prices, as well as the higher New Zealand dollar.

“Increased global oil supply, including indications from OPEC that they may reverse previous production cuts, is putting downward pressure on global crude oil prices,” Leung said.

“Meanwhile, the New Zealand dollar has appreciated since the more hawkish than expected tone of the May Monetary Policy Statement from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ).”

OPEC, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, allows leading oil-producing countries to influence the global oil market to maximise profit.

The RBNZ held the official cash rate (OCR) at 5.5% in May and revealed an increase was possible to help tame persistent domestic inflation.

Leung said the indication from the RBNZ that it expects to keep interest rates higher for longer makes the New Zealand dollar more attractive.

“As a higher New Zealand dollar reduces the price of imported goods including petrol, we have seen this appreciation in the New Zealand dollar help to drive the price of petrol lower more recently.”