Short of a last-minute policy backflip between when The Brewspaper goes to print and when you are reading this, the Federal Government has removed the final discount on the fuel excise on Sunday 2nd August, resulting in a 16 c per litre price jump over the weekend.
I remember a lot of advertising across social media platforms announcing the original 32 c reduction to the excise in March, but strangely nothing about it being changed to a 16 c reduction in July… funny that. But this saga got me thinking — how much does petrol actually cost? You see, the main thing that I learnt from this whole fuel crisis and the reduction in fuel excise was the fact that we actually have quite a hefty fuel excise (aka tax). While it is true that it is less than the excise imposed by some nations such as the UK ($1.02 per litre!), it’s still double that of Japan (26 c per litre). In fact, data from just a few months ago shows that when we were paying $2.23/L for U95, the price in Japan was just $1.43/L. And in Indonesia — a developing country — petrol was a mere $1.05/L! Iran is rolling in the stuff at 4 c/L (no, that is not a typo).
So when we go to the bowser and see 200 c per litre for petrol, where does this price come from? Well firstly, GST applies so that’s 18.2 c/L straight to the Federal Government. Then the 52.6 c/L fuel excise also heads down to Canberra.
As I write this, the price of crude oil is around 76 c/L. After refining the oil into petroleum in Singapore, the price still only increases to 90 c/L. The cost to ship this to Australia and then truck it to the servo is typically around 15 c/L. Then there are all the operating costs of the service station at somewhere around 20 c/L, usually with a few cents profit (although this can certainly be much more!). But that still only comes to around 128 c/L before government taxes. Just try not to think about this number when you have to fill the tank this week…
— The Editor
