SYDNEY: The Russia-Ukraine crisis and OPEC production limitation combined with recovering oil demand pushed February prices for both international refined petrol and average retail petrol in Australia’s five largest cities to an eight-year high, Xinhua reported.
The latest petrol monitoring report published on Monday by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the country’s consumer watchdog, revealed that daily average retail petrol prices in Australia’s five major cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth hit 182.4 cents per litre (about 132.4 US cents) in late-February 2022, the highest inflation-adjusted (real) level since 2014.
ACCC Chair Rod Sims said the world was already experiencing high crude oil prices since late last year and the Russia-Ukraine crisis has forced crude oil prices even higher, as Russia is a major supplier of oil.
“Retail petrol prices in Australia are largely determined by international refined petrol prices and the Australian/ US dollar exchange rate. As refined petrol is made from crude oil, movements in the global crude oil price drive the international price of refined petrol.”
“Crude oil prices have been climbing sharply since late-2020 and prices at the bowser here have followed,” he said.
John Quiggin, a prominent research economist and Australian economic policy commentator from the University of Queensland, told Xinhua that every 10-US dollar increase per barrel in crude oil prices translates to about a 10-cent increase per litre of petrol prices in Australia.
Facing the high prices, Australian authorities were urged to temporarily scrap taxes on fuel to relieve costs passed on to consumers. – Bernama
