International and Domestic Petrol and Diesel Price Comparisons
[ Last Updated 22 May 2006 ]
Data to the week ending Friday 22 May 2006
The three graphs below provide weekly average prices of crude oil, petrol and diesel. Prices are weighted daily averages in nominal New Zealand cents per litre and take into account $US/$NZ exchange rate movements. Retail prices are less taxes and levies.
Graph 1 presents Dubai crude oil and Singapore spot prices for gasoline unleaded 95 (petrol) and gasoil (diesel).
Graph 1: Weekly Average Dubai Crude Oil, Singapore Petrol and Singapore Diesel Prices
Sources: United States Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Singapore is a major refinery centre, considered to be operating at industry best practice levels, and is widely used as a benchmark for pricing in the Asia-Pacific region. The Singapore prices therefore provide a basis for comparison with the local retail petrol and diesel prices.
Graph 2 presents the New Zealand retail price (less taxes and levies) for unleaded 91 petrol and the Singapore spot price for unleaded 95 petrol.
Graph 2: Weekly New Zealand Retail (Less Taxes) and Singapore Wholesale Prices: Regular Unleaded Petrol
Sources: United States Energy Information Administration (EIA); MED (for New Zealand prices)
For an explanation of importer margins see Transport Fuels Prices and Importer Margins - Excerpts from the Energy Data File July 2004 [944 kB PDF].
Graph 3 focuses on diesel, presenting the New Zealand retail price (less taxes and levies) and the Singapore spot price.
The calculated diesel importer margin is artificially high. Reasons for this include:
- The current benchmark Singapore price does not reflect costs of 50ppm diesel. It is more reflective of higher sulphur diesel.
- High Sulphur diesel is in over supply and low sulphur diesel is in under supply.
- New Zealand oil companies are having to source from further afield with associated higher transport and insurance costs.
An alternative benchmark is under investigation.
Graph 3: Weekly New Zealand Retail (Less Taxes) and Singapore Wholesale Prices: Diesel
Sources: United States Energy Information Administration (EIA); MED (for New Zealand prices)
Graphs 2 and 3 also include a provisional weekly importer margin for petrol and diesel, respectively. These margins are computed starting with the difference between the retail price in New Zealand and the Singapore spot price lagged by one week; before 2003 this lag was two weeks but statistical analysis suggests that the lag has now shortened. The costs of insurance and freight are then subtracted to calculate the simplified importer margin, but these costs are not updated on a weekly basis.
In order to provide weekly updates, the New Zealand petrol and diesel retail prices in these graphs are based on limited monitoring of service station forecourt prices by the MED. As such, they do not reflect all the variation due to regional pricing differences or local market situations. A more detailed analysis of the "importer margin" is carried out by the Ministry each quarter, using national average price data from Statistics New Zealand. This is published in the biennial Energy Data File but the relevant pages themselves are also available here:
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