The difference between the lowest and highest average price was $0.72. The highest average price was $3.29, reported in Lake Rotomā in the Rotorua district and in the Far North’s Waimamaku and Ōmāpere.
The lowest average price was $2.57, reported in Hampton Downs, Waikato and in Utuhina, Rotorua.
The most common average price was $2.97, which was reported in 55 of the areas analysed.
Fuel prices reached $3.16 per litre in July 2022. By this time, the government had already removed the 25-cents-per-litre petrol excise duty in response to cost of living pressures. This was added back to the pump price on July 1 this year.
In September, the Commerce Commission wrote to the major fuel companies, asking them to “please explain” the pricing levels and variations picked up in the Quarterly Fuel Monitoring Report for the period ended March 31, 2023.
Commission chairman John Small said some of the pricing levels and variations picked up during the report period were “concerning, with no clear underlying factors”.
Small said one of the indicators of a competitive market is pricing that reflects the cost of supplying fuel at retail sites.
“We are seeing wide variations in prices both between and within cities, and these pricing differences do not appear to be explained by differences in the underlying costs.
“In a competitive market, we’d expect to see prices at the pump reflect the cost of supplying fuel at the pump, whereas what we are seeing is retailers in some towns and cities charging a lot more for what is essentially the same product with similar cost components.”
For example, the report found motorists in Whangārei were paying more for fuel than drivers in the other cities studied, despite it being home to Marsden Point, the country’s nearest port to major fuel sources like Singapore and South Korea.
“In contrast, Hamilton is seeing some of the lowest prices in the country.”
One of the Gaspy app’s founders, Mike Newton, came up with the idea while road-tripping from Palmerston North to Tauranga in 2014. He had filled up in Taupō, but noticed the petrol prices half an hour down the road in Ātiamuri were “significantly cheaper”.
“I could easily have made it the extra distance. At that moment, I thought to myself, ‘Someone needs to make an app for this’,” he said.
Newton and three friends started building the app and launched it in 2016. The app was also recently released in the UK.
“Our hope for Gaspy was that we could provide some visibility to people around fuel prices in their city or region so that they could make more informed decisions,” Newton said.
“It was obvious that there was a vast difference in prices between stations [which are] not even that far apart physically essentially selling the same product, sometimes even the same brand.”
Julia Gabel is an Auckland-based journalist who largely covers data stories. She joined the Herald in 2020.
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