Although there are more electric vehicles (EVs) on the roads and an increase in the number of Australians working from home, the prices of fuel in the year to June 2024 increased over 100 percent of inflation. This sudden spike has contributed further to the current cost of living difficulties that most households are experiencing.
A report published from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) notes that fuel prices have increased by 7.7% over the past twelve months. This figure is almost bringing home what the general CPI for that period managed at 3.8% increase.
The thirst for petrol and diesel went down however, purchasing 64 million litres of fuel less in the June quarter which is an equivalent of 2.8% decline. The increase of this overtime could be linked to the improved fuel efficiency of vehicles, the use of electric cars, and the increase in more people working from home.
Overall, concerns about the inflationary environment in the United States held down sentiment for crude oil which lowered the price. But in Australia, fuel prices compelled a 1.7% increase in the June quarter compared with a 1% rise in the CPI. This, however, has done nothing but placed more strain on inflation.
In Queensland and other states increasing their mark where for service stations the increase of 1.8 cents per litre was established on average at the figure of 17.2 cents per litre. These merchants find their margins to be slightly better than what they used to be before the outbreak of Covid 19.
Global Factors Impact Prices
The ACCC cites four decisive global influences on fuel pricing: OPEC, the state of the economy in China, Europe and the USA, and the regional conflicts such as Ukraine and the Middle Eastern states.
As for the major capital cities of Australia, the diesel fuel cost has also increased reaching 196.5 cents per litre representing a 3.3 cents increase in average petrol prices. Sydney experienced the highest increase in petrol prices in the month under review, with a 5.7 cents rise while the city of Adelaide recorded a marginal decline.
Things are expected to change for the better it seems. Petrol prices began to decline in the identification of causal factors by the ACCC of forward Midyear estimates of real petrol prices for five major Australian cities. “In June 2024, average weekly retail petrol prices across Australia’s five biggest capital cities (that also includes Sydney) stood at 193.6 cents per litre. By August 2024 however, several months later, this price had dropped qualitatively by nearly 10 cents which amounts to 183.7 cents,” an ACCC spokesperson stated.
Coming back to Australia, however, while the fuel prices have been on the decline since June, it is still a big score in the price pressures Australia continues to experience.
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