About The Petrol Price

Who we are

The Petrol Price (thepetrolprice.com) is an independent Australian fuel price site run by Spherify Pty Ltd (ABN 91 675 450 718), an Australian web and data company. We are not affiliated with any fuel retailer, oil company or government body, and no one pays to influence the prices or commentary shown here.

The site exists to answer three practical questions. What is a fair price for fuel in your city today? What does a price change really cost you? And why do prices move the way they do?

Where our data comes from

Wholesale fuel prices (terminal gate prices)

City prices come from the Australian Institute of Petroleum (AIP), which publishes the average terminal gate price (TGP) of BP, Ampol, Viva Energy and ExxonMobil for each capital city every weekday. We collect these automatically each day and hold the full daily history back to January 2004 for petrol and diesel in all seven capitals.

AIP's daily table does not include a national figure. Between AIP's periodic spreadsheet releases we calculate the national average ourselves by weighting each city the way AIP does; tested against AIP's own published national averages over 500 trading days, our figure is within 0.1c. When AIP publishes its spreadsheet, its official figures replace ours.

Oil prices and the exchange rate

Brent and WTI crude oil futures and the AUD/USD rate are delayed market prices collected every four hours. Daily changes compare against the previous close of the same futures contract, so the figures stay correct when the front-month contract rolls over.

Fuel excise

Excise rates come from the ATO's published excise duty rates. Our calculations switch to each new rate on the date it takes effect, including temporary changes such as the 2026 excise cut.

News

The industry news page lists recent headlines about Australian fuel prices from other publishers, and the latest few also appear under our guides. We link to the original articles and do not republish them, and the news page is kept out of search results because the reporting is theirs, not ours.

Guides, reports and how we write them

Our guides explain how fuel prices work and how to pay less, and our monthly reports cover what happened to prices in the month just gone. They are written by The Petrol Price data desk at Spherify, from the wholesale price data described above, and every figure in them is checked against that data before publishing.

Where we rely on someone else's work, such as the ACCC's analysis of price cycles or a state's rules for price reporting, we say so and link to or name the source. Where the facts change, for example a new excise rate or a change to a state scheme, we update the guide and show the date it was updated. No fuel retailer, wholesaler or government body sees or approves what we publish, and we do not accept payment for coverage.

The site carries advertising to cover its running costs. Advertisers have no say over the prices, analysis or recommendations on it.

How we calculate things

A fair retail price is the city's terminal gate price plus 10 to 15 cents a litre, which is the usual allowance for freight, running costs and the retailer's margin.

The gouge check flags a pump price more than 20 cents a litre above the terminal gate price. That is well past a normal margin.

In the price breakdown, GST is one eleventh of the pump price and excise is the current ATO rate. What's left is split between the wholesale cost of the fuel and the retail margin.

Cost per kilometre is your fuel use in litres per 100 km, divided by 100, times the price per litre.

Limitations

Terminal gate prices are wholesale averages, not the price at any particular service station. Retail prices vary by station, suburb and the point in the local price cycle, and regional prices usually sit above capital city prices because of freight. Treat our fair price as a benchmark, not a quote. Nothing on this site is financial advice.

Update log

• 9 Oct 2026. Added eleven guides and the first two monthly reports, written from our wholesale price data. Added a local section to each city page covering where its fuel comes from, its price cycle and its state's price reporting scheme. Corrected the transparency page, since every state and the Northern Territory now require servos to report prices. The market page now shows the latest figures without waiting for JavaScript.
• 29 Sep 2026. Rebuilt the daily AIP collector after AIP moved to a new website, and filled the gap from 19 August using AIP's official spreadsheet. Added full price history, 52-week ranges and capital city rankings to every city page. Corrected excise to the ATO rate of 53.7 c/L from 3 August 2026. Added September 2026 events to the market timeline.
• 31 Mar 2026. Switched the market chart to daily terminal gate price data and added the April 2026 excise change.
• 28 Mar 2026. Price breakdown switched from estimates to live terminal gate prices.
• 21 Mar 2026. Site launched with the fuel cost calculator, market data and city pages.

Contact us

Spotted an error, or have a question about the data? Email hello@thepetrolprice.com. We correct mistakes promptly and note significant changes in the update log above.