Canberra petrol prices have held steady yet again, as the national average pump price defied expectations to fall by more than 3 cents per litre over the past week.
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Motorists in the ACT again paid an average of 157.9 cents per litre for unleaded fuel over the week leading up to Sunday.
Meanwhile the national average price dropped 3.3 cents to 150 cents per litre, after a rise of 4.1 cents in the previous week, and despite predictions last week by analysts at CommSec the price would rise again.
But CommSec said the small fall in price was no reason to celebrate, and held firm prices would head up again over the coming weeks after being forced down by the discounting cycle in major cities.
“The decline reflects an easing from peak prices following the usual path of the discounting cycles,” the CommSec report said.
“The bad news is that wholesale prices are creeping higher, pointing to an extra 2-3 cents being added to pump prices over the next fortnight.”
The price of fuel in Canberra has been largely static for about two months, despite constant fluctuation in the national price, which CommSec chief economist Craig James said was “a bit odd”.
He said it put Canberra in a similar category with Hobart and Darwin, but said he couldn’t point to a concrete reason why fuel companies were holding the prices steady in the smaller capitals.
Of the capital cities, Canberra was the third most expensive behind Darwin and Hobart, and was also more than 3 cents above the regional average. Fuel was cheapest in Melbourne (144.6 cents per litre, down 7.7 cents in the past week) and in Sydney (145.1, down 7.9 cents)
Around the region, the price of fuel was steady in Batemans Bay (156.9 cents per litre), Goulburn (155.5), Tumut (163.9), and Queanbeyan (156.2), but was slightly higher in Yass (158.3, up 1.8 cents), and Cooma (162.6, up 0.8 cents).
