Fuel prices
New Zealand imports all of its refined fuel, so pump prices blend the global oil price, the exchange rate, shipping, and taxes and levies, currently around 77c a litre.
Diesel carries lower excise at the pump because most users pay Road User Charges separately.
Pump price vs crude oil
91 octane retail price (cents/litre) against Dubai crude (USD/barrel, right axis) - the benchmark MBIE uses for NZ importer costs.
These two lines don't have to move together week to week: the pump price also carries taxes, refining and shipping costs that don't change with the oil price. Over months, a rising crude line should still drag the petrol line up with it, just later and by less. The marked dates are shocks to global oil markets, not to New Zealand's fuel taxes or the exchange rate.
Since 2020, 91 octane pump prices are up +33.0% while Dubai crude is up +48.5% in US dollars. Pump prices have risen less than crude because excise and GST are mostly fixed cents-per-litre amounts, not a percentage of the oil price, so they shrink as a share of the total the more crude rises. Diesel is up +81.6% over the same period.
Lower and more stable is best for households and businesses: the pump price should track the crude price closely, without spikes caused by the exchange rate or local margins on top of the world oil price. New Zealand has no policy lever to hold the price down directly, since it's driven by the global oil market, not domestic decisions.
Why the exchange rate matters
Crude oil in NZD terms vs the NZD/USD exchange rate. A weaker dollar makes every barrel more expensive, even when oil is flat.
Oil is priced in US dollars, but NZ importers pay with NZD converted into USD - and NZD/USD is exactly that conversion rate: how many US dollars one NZ dollar buys. Right now that's 0.589, so flipped around, it takes 1 ÷ 0.589 ≈ 1.70 NZD to buy a single US dollar. When the NZD/USD line falls, that ratio gets worse: each NZD buys even less USD, so it costs more NZD for the very same barrel, even if the world oil price hasn't moved at all. That's why a rising crude-in-NZD line while the exchange rate is falling means it's currency, not oil, doing the damage at the pump.
Since 2020, Dubai crude is up +48.5% in US dollars but +69.2% once converted to NZD. That gap is currency, not oil: the NZD/USD rate is −12.2% over the same period, and a weaker dollar makes every imported barrel cost more in NZD.
Stability matters more than direction here: a currency that drifts gradually gives importers and exporters time to adjust, while sharp swings in either direction cause real damage - a sudden drop spikes import costs like fuel, a sudden rise squeezes exporters. The Reserve Bank deliberately lets the NZD float rather than targeting a level.
Fuel demand & imports
Real data from MBIE's Oil Statistics, quarterly back to 1974: how much petrol New Zealand actually uses, and how much of it arrives by ship.
million litres, national, per quarter
million litres, national, per quarter
Petrol demand vs imports, 1974–present
Quarterly national petrol consumption and refined petrol imports (million litres).
The 'Imports' line only counts petrol brought in already refined; it doesn't count crude oil that was refined into petrol here in New Zealand. For most of this chart's history, imports sit well below demand because the Marsden Point refinery was turning imported crude into petrol domestically. The marked line shows April 2022, when the refinery converted to an import-only terminal: that's why the gap closes from that point on, not because supply suddenly caught up to demand. The COVID-19 dip is a genuine, temporary collapse in demand from lockdowns, not a data error.
Since 2020, domestic petrol demand is −6.1% while refined-petrol imports are +90.2%. That gap is real, and it's not stockpiling: it's the tail end of Marsden Point's 2022 conversion from an oil refinery into an import-only terminal, so a growing share of supply now arrives already refined instead of being refined here from imported crude.
Steady or slowly falling demand is the healthy pattern: it points to a growing economy getting more efficient (better vehicles, less waste) rather than people driving less because they can't afford to. A sharp drop is a warning sign of a weaker economy, not a win - these lines track real activity, not a policy target.
What this means
- About 77c of every litre of petrol is tax: fuel excise, ACC levy, and GST on top of everything. That tax share is why pump prices never fall as far as crude.
- New Zealand's fuel is refined offshore, so shipping costs and the Singapore benchmark (MOPS) matter more than West Texas or Brent headlines alone.
- When the NZ dollar weakens against the US dollar, imported fuel costs more: a 10 cent fall in the exchange rate adds roughly 10–15 cents per litre at the pump.
Fuel demand and imports are live from MBIE Oil Statistics. Pump prices, crude oil, the exchange rate and taxes are now live too, from MBIE's weekly fuel price monitoring (parsed from a manually-downloaded file while automated access to it remains blocked - see methodology).