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Petrol prices soar by up to 12 cents-a-litre
Motorists are being slugged up to 12 cents-a-litre more for petrol after oil companies ended their discounting overnight.
Petrol across most of NSW is selling for about 96 cents a litre with one eastern Sydney station charging 99.9 cents.
Service Station Association chief executive Kevin Hughes said oil companies ended their discounting, adding more than 10 cents to the price at the bowser.
Families planning road trips during the NSW school holidays, which begin tomorrow, will be hit hard.
"All that's happened is that the oil companies have removed their discounts and the price is now where one would expect it," he said.
"It's not a rise in the actual price of petrol, it's a removal of the discount and it will be a slug for families, but if the level of discounting wasn't there, they'd be paying this price all the time."
Mr Hughes said oil companies could not sustain heavy discounting for lengthy periods and often tried to recoup money ahead of holiday periods.
The Mideast crisis and supply restrictions by OPEC countries had driven up the price of crude oil from $US18 a barrel a few months ago to nearly $US28 a barrel, Mr Hughes said.
The move added 10 cents to the cost at the bowser.
"Pricing is gauged on a seven-day rolling average of the international pricing, so if there was an overnight spike, it doesn't mean you'll get an overnight spike in the price at the pump," Mr Hughes said.
"It's up to around 95, 96, 97 cents a litre."
He said Australia had the among the worst mechanisms for petrol pricing and the association would next week push for a petrol industry ombudsman and what is known as terminal gate pricing at a meeting in Canberra.
Terminal gate pricing would force the major oil companies to each charge service stations the same price for petrol at the terminal.
"Oil companies at the moment control the price ... that is wrong in our view in that they are dictating what the price on the board should be and they're also dictating the margin the service station operator has to accept," Mr Hughes said.
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You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen. It said, 'Parking Fine.'So that was nice.
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