Pump prices for both petrol and diesel have been stable for the past three weeks or so, even though both crude oil prices, and the exchange rate, have been moving around reasonably aggressively. During March, the trend was for rising crude oil prices, although they have fallen back a little in early April. The NZ$, on the other hand, has been strengthening significantly. These two changes have tended to cancel each other out. But the net impact has been to enable the petrol companies to hold their gross margin to import, refine, and distribute unleaded 91 at 36c/litre, 20% above the five-year average for this measure of 30c/litre. Taxes, however, take twice the amount of the petrol company margin, at 44.2% of the pump price.
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