Avoid buying dearest petrol on Thursday and Friday

John Rolfe
Herald Sun
March 27, 2013

An independent study of petrol prices showed petrol prices peaked at the end of the working week in most of the cities analysed.

AUSTRALIAN motorists could save as much as $200 a year on fuel by boycotting the bowsers on Thursday and Fridays.

One of the most comprehensive independent studies of petrol prices to be done in this country shows the end of the working week is the petrol price peak in 90 per cent of the 114 cities and towns analysed.

There was not a single place where either Thursday or Friday was the cheapest day to fill up, yet that was when demand peaked, the study’s author, University of New England Economics Professor Abbas Valadkhani, said.

The ACCC also found that Thursday was the day of highest demand in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide last year.

By shifting purchases to the cheapest days “motorists can counter-attack” against petrol retailers, Prof Valadkhani said.

“Everyone in Australia, avoid Thursday and Friday, that is the message,” he said.

In almost two-thirds of locations, the cheapest day to buy fuel was Tuesday.

Sunday was best in one in five places.

Prof Valadkhani’s analysis was published in the journal, Energy Policy. He looks at seven years of data and identifies 16 locations where potential savings are significant.

These have the strongest price cycles – all are mainland state capitals or major regional centres.

Metropolitan Melbourne, Geelong and Sunbury are the only Victorian locations on the shortlist.

The largest price differentials identified offer a motorist who buys on the day with the cheapest average an annual saving of up to $200 if filling a family-sized car weekly.

“Motorists can certainly get a better deal if they are conscious of the fuel price cycle,” said Australian Automobile Association executive director Andrew McKellar.

But he said the price cycle had “changed substantially in the past 18 months”. ACCC research suggested the changes began in 2010.

The cycle is now less predictable. Rather than being seven days, it tended to be 10 to 12 days long. That meant the day of the peak and trough changed.

ACCC monitoring in Melbourne last year found the peak of the cycle was most common on Sunday, then Thursday. The low was most common on a Wednesday.