There is a glimmer of hope amid the rising cost of living come Christmas time with experts reporting fuel prices are steadier in the nation now than they have been in the last 18 months.
The stabilisation is due to predictably in supply issues and strengthening of the Australian currency which has allowed price rises to be absorbed.
RAA senior mobility manager Mark Borelace said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was looking at the behaviour of the oil companies and banks during this period so he believes they are likely on their best behaviour.
“I know there’s a cost-of-living issue going on right now and the government is quite sensitive because you have got interest rates rising,” he said.
“The Reserve Bank raised the interest rates for the eighth time in a row so there’s going to be that pressure following through.
“If you look at the city, the last five price cycles have been about a fortnight apart, peaking and troughing around about the same spots so there’s a level of predictability starting to come back into the market.
“The low point at which the price jumps back up again is still around the terminal gate price.”
Mr Borelace said during the Christmas season it was likely some unpredictability would creep back into the market.
“In the Christmas season the market seems to go a little crazy because people from the country often move to other parts of the country or back into the city, and people from the city move back into the country for holidays, so you get a whole different dynamic there,” he said.
“Last year we saw the fuel prices stay relatively stable during that period while country people did not want to sort of alienate themselves to the market when there were less people around.
“At this stage, if it goes to plan, then we should be getting back to a low price in the city two or three days before Christmas but that’s still a little variable.
“Closer to Christmas we will be able to tell you whether it’s better to fill up if you’re heading out, fill up if you’re heading into Adelaide or fill up in Adelaide when you get there.
“If the cycle goes where it has been then about the 21st or 22nd of December we should be at the bottom of the cycle.
“All that needs to do is move by two or three days then it puts us into the Christmas/Boxing Day period then we’re starting to move.”
Mr Borelace said Mount Gambier was often the most competitive regional city and on average the cheaper of the South Australian regional cities when it came to fuel prices.
“Currently Mount Gambier is sort of running between $1.70 and $1.78 (per litre for petrol),” he said.
“The terminal gate price last Wednesday was $1.66 so that is about 10 or 11 cents markup which is about normal margins.
“There’s been a little bit more stability in diesel prices as well so currently we have had about $2.25 for a lot of them.
“Now we’re starting to get down to around the $2 a litre which is pretty good because a lot of farmers are starting to get into harvest, so they’ll be wanting diesel as well.”
Mr Borelace said he expected the fuel price to stay stable if the last two or so months were any indicator.
“When you get global uncertainty, the market factors in a security price for the fuel and that can jump,” he said.
“Given that we get no more global international shocks, and the Russian war does not escalate, we should be relatively stable for the next month or two.
“I just want to reinforce the use of an app (such as myRAA) because Mount Gambier has enough variety of prices there to take advantage of it currently.”
