Canberrans should be paying just over $1 a litre for petrol, NRMA director Alan Evans says. Instead, the average price on Wednesday was 129.6 cents.
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A global oversupply has dropped the price of crude oil from about $130 in July to about $60 a barrel, Mr Evans said.
In Sydney and Melbourne this week petrol prices dipped below $1 a litre at some retailers but most, and their Canberra counterparts, are yet to dramatically drop prices.
"The old yardstick we used to use is for every dollar drop in the price of a barrel of crude oil it was a cent off the price at the pump so we should see under $1 in Sydney and therefore just over a dollar in Canberra," Mr Evans said.
"Today [Wednesday] the average price in Canberra is 129.6 and in Sydney its 112.5, so we are all still being ripped off, but Canberra is being ripped off more than anyone else."
Mr Evans said fuel companies were failing to pass on the discounted oil prices in an attempt to make "hay while the sun shines".
"It's the boiling frog syndrome. We've got used to paying higher prices so when their costs go down as rapidly as it has they're not passing it on to us, they're just dropping it down a bit to boost their bottom line," he said.
On Wednesday, petrol in Canberra was as high as 134.8c per litre at some retailers and the lowest was the market's newcomer, Costco at Majura Park, which was selling petrol at 119.7c per litre at 7.30am.
Nearby competitor Woolworths dropped its fuel price from 127.7c per litre in the morning to 117.7c from 3pm.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate Canberra's long-standing high petrol prices and disparity with the prices of other capital cities in December following a similar move from Small Business Minister Bruce Billson.
Mr Evans welcomed the extra pressure on oil companies and said it would force them to moderate their behaviour.
"[But] you'll never stop them trying to exploit motorists, particularly in Canberra, because there's a view that we are all rich public servants," he said.
Mr Evans said fuel companies were "even handed in their discrimination" with similar petrol prices in Queanbeyan.
Queanbeyan petrol station owner Colin Hill - who co-owns BP stations on Yass Road, Queanbeyan and Ipswich St, Fyshwick - was offering some of the cheapest unleaded in Queanbeyan on Wednesday, at 125.9c.
He expected prices to continue to drop in the coming days.
"The price is coming down, and it'll probably keep coming over the next couple weeks, but not by much - only a couple more cents."
Mr Evans said if crude oil prices remained low and dropped further as expected petrol prices would improve.
He said the opening of Costco's petrol station had a marginal effect on the wider Canberra petrol market and most people had worked out the savings they made were quite substantial if they drove to Majura Park when their tanks were near empty.
