With another holiday weekend approaching, small-time petrol retailer Gull has announced a temporary five cent per litre cut in the price of petrol. While this might bring some relief to those planning a road trip this holiday, petrol prices are still hovering near record levels – despite a strong Kiwi dollar and falling crude oil prices.

For many of us, grumbles about petrol prices are as common as those about the weather. But are we really so hard done by? How do our fuel prices stack up against other countries?

Well, compared to those motoring mad Italians ($2.94 a litre) or those skint, but sun-kissed Greeks ($2.79 a litre) we’re in gas-heaven. But if you want a road trip without breaking the bank this holiday, you can’t beat Iran where a trip from Tehran to the coast looks positively attractive when petrol is just 14 cents a litre!

So do we pay too much at the pump? What do you think?

Before the Long Weekend the price of standard petrol was around $2.16/litre at the pump, which is made up of a refining fee, oil company expenses/profit & government taxes. The oil refining fee at “Refining NZ” Marsden Point for ONE LITRE of Petrol is: 3.14 CENTS. Refining NZ does not buy or own the crude, it only processes.
This is fact: One barrel of crude is 169 litres, Refining NZ gets $US 5.00 per barrel less taxes works out to be around $NZ0.0314 per litre (THAT’S ALL). Note this refining fee does not fluctuate when the petrol price goes up.

Yes we could all do with a bit of discount over the Long Weekend as we think we pay too much, but we are still better off than most countries.

I'm too tired to do the math, but the USA pays about half what we do for gas. And a few years back (pre-9/11) it was a quarter. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the public transportation systems were decent in NZ and there was a real option to driving your car, but there really isn't. We're screwed.

You need it, you put it in, you pay for it. I don't even bother to look at the price most of the time. Only thing annoys me about it is all the pumps on prepay.

I guess we just need more competition. I use fuel discount vouchers but generally with 4c off a litre you only save a couple of dollars. I think most people would go to a service station that offered 4c off the lowest competitor's price but it will never happen. We'll have to wait patiently for flying cars that run off air or water! :)

Yeah, I agree. At the moment it's way too expensive for me to own a car and I just have to make do with the bus.

I dont know if it makes it feel any better, but in the uk, they pay nearly twice as much - ouch!! Not saying as the price here is cheap, but at least its cheaper. So long as we are beholden to the big oil producing nations, we will have little control. Maybe biodiesel, if we can make it ourselves, will be the answer! Think of all those chip shops we could recycle the chip fat from - better in our cars than on our bellies!

I don't think companies are making a lot of profit margin per litre of fuel they sell so I think it all comes down to how much tax/subsidies each country put towards petrol...? (but I could be wrong). Yes it's getting really expensive to drive now and I think it's just going to go up - we may be seeing $3/litre soon!! Perhaps it's time to buy a hybrid electric car as they are much more fuel efficient so you don't end up paying as much.

Between OPEC and the Seven Sisters I wouldn't consider a debate is possible...

I was wondering how much of a discount would prompt someone to drive to another station. It seems to me a couple of cents is never worth it especially with supermarket coupons up to 25c per litre.