In April 2026 the price of regular 91 set an all time record of $3.51 a litre, and filling the tank felt like it had never hurt more. Here is the strange part. Measured in the money that actually matters, a litre of petrol costs almost exactly what it did in 2011.
Newswire has taken every weekly price the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has published since April 2004, all 1,163 weeks of it, and adjusted each one for inflation using the consumers price index. The result is the real price of petrol in New Zealand over 22 years, along with where every cent at the pump actually goes.
The headline number. In June 2026 dollars, petrol averaged $3.02 a litre over the first seven months of 2011 and $3.01 a litre over the first seven months of 2026. Fifteen years of price rises at the pump sign, and the real cost of a litre has moved by one cent.
Petrol prices since 2004
The nominal price is the number on the pump sign in the dollars of the day. The real price restates every week in June 2026 dollars, so a litre bought in 2005 can be compared fairly with a litre bought last Friday. That distinction is the whole story of this chart.
Petrol at the pump, 2004 to 2026
Weekly price of regular 91, in the dollars of the day (nominal) and in June 2026 dollars (real), per litre
- July 2008 — crude oil peaks before the global financial crisis, $3.37 real
- March 2020 — Covid lockdowns collapse oil demand
- March 2022 — 25 cent excise cut after Russia invades Ukraine
- June 2022 — all time real record, $3.67 in June 2026 dollars
- April 2026 — all time nominal record, $3.51 at the pump
Source. MBIE weekly fuel price monitoring. Stats NZ consumers price index. Newswire analysis.
The orange nominal line nearly triples, from $1.15 in April 2004 to just over $3.00 today. The blue real line tells a different story. It climbs steeply through the 2000s, reaches about $3.00 a litre in 2011, and has spent most of the fifteen years since wobbling around that same level.
The genuinely cheap petrol in this series is at the very start. In December 2004 a litre cost $1.10 at the pump, which works out at $1.93 in today’s money, the cheapest real price in the whole 22 years. That era ended quickly and has never come back.
What a litre cost in 2004, 2011 and today
The table shows the average pump price of regular 91 for selected years, what that price is worth in June 2026 dollars, and the share of the pump price that was tax, including GST and the emissions trading scheme charge. The 2026 row covers January to July.
| Year | Pump price then | In June 2026 dollars | Tax share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | $1.19 | $2.10 | 46% |
| 2008 | $1.84 | $2.88 | 40% |
| 2011 | $2.08 | $3.00 | 43% |
| 2014 | $2.16 | $3.01 | 45% |
| 2017 | $2.03 | $2.75 | 50% |
| 2020 | $2.10 | $2.71 | 58% |
| 2022 | $2.74 | $3.17 | 43% |
| 2024 | $2.73 | $2.90 | 48% |
| 2026 | $2.99 | $3.01 | 43% |
Two things stand out. The real price has been remarkably flat since 2011, drifting between about $2.70 and $3.20 in all but the wildest weeks. And the tax share moves in the opposite direction to the oil price, for a reason covered below.
The record years
Three moments in the series stand above everything else.
- July 2008. Crude oil ran up to record levels in the months before the global financial crisis, and pump prices here hit $2.18, which is $3.37 in today’s money. Within six months the crisis had crushed oil demand and a litre was back under $1.40.
- June 2022. After Russia invaded Ukraine, regular 91 reached $3.14 at the pump even with the excise cut in place. In June 2026 dollars that is $3.67 a litre, the most expensive petrol in the 22 years of records and, on this measure, likely the most expensive New Zealand has seen.
- April 2026. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz pushed Dubai crude to US$156 a barrel in March, the highest in the whole MBIE series, and the pump price set its all time nominal record of $3.51. In real terms it stayed below the 2022 peak. Newswire covered the supply picture in detail in our report on New Zealand’s fuel supply five months into the Hormuz crisis.
Where the money goes at the pump
MBIE splits every weekly price into its parts. What the fuel cost to buy and ship here, the importer’s margin, fuel excise duty (a set number of cents per litre) plus ACC and other levies, the emissions trading scheme carbon charge, and GST on top of the lot. This chart shows all five parts in June 2026 dollars.
Where the pump price goes, in June 2026 dollars
Real cents per litre of regular 91, split into MBIE’s published cost components, four weekly
Source. MBIE weekly fuel price monitoring. Stats NZ consumers price index. Component split is MBIE’s own. The inflation adjustment is Newswire’s. Components sum to MBIE’s discounted price so totals sit one to three cents under the board price in recent years.
The blue band is the swing factor. Importer cost follows the world oil price and the exchange rate, collapsing to under 60 real cents a litre in the depths of Covid and blowing out past 190 in mid 2022. Almost every spike and slump in the pump price starts in that band.
The quieter story is the yellow band. Importer margin, the part of the price that stays with the fuel companies, averaged about 23 real cents a litre in the mid 2000s and about 40 real cents over the past year. The Commerce Commission’s fuel market study led to new wholesale market rules from 2021 aimed at exactly this part of the price.
Explore the data. Newswire updates these numbers every week, with this week’s price, the cost breakdown and a year of history, in our weekly fuel price tracker.
Petrol tax since 2004
Here is the number that surprises most people. In 2004 fuel excise duty and levies took 42 cents from every litre, which is 75 cents in today’s money. Today they take 77 cents. Across 22 years the real tax on a litre of petrol has barely moved.
Because excise is a fixed number of cents rather than a percentage, the tax share of the pump price swings with the oil price. When oil collapsed in late 2020 taxes briefly made up 61 percent of the pump price. When oil peaked in mid 2008 the share fell to 35 percent. The tax barely changed either time. The rest of the price did.
The visible policy moves are all in the orange, green and pink bands of the chart. GST rose from 12.5 to 15 percent in October 2010. The emissions trading scheme charge appeared on petrol in mid 2010 and has grown to about 13 cents a litre. And in March 2022 the government cut excise by 25 cents a litre as prices spiked, a discount that lasted until it was wound back by July 2023.
Aucklanders also paid a regional fuel tax of 11.5 cents a litre from July 2018 until June 2024, which these national average figures smooth over.
What happens to petrol tax next
The excise era is ending. Fuel excise duty, about 70 of those 77 cents, goes to the National Land Transport Fund to pay for roads, a system that dates back a century. The government is replacing fuel excise with electronic road user charges for all light vehicles, with legislation expected to pass in 2026 and the transition to begin around 2027.
When that happens, the pump price of petrol will fall by the amount of the excise, and drivers will pay for roads by distance instead. The real price of petrol, the blue line in the first chart, will then measure something new for the first time in a century. Fuel, without the roads bundled in.
How we did the numbers
Prices are the weekly national board price of regular 91 from MBIE’s weekly fuel price monitoring dataset, which starts on 23 April 2004. Real prices restate each week in June 2026 dollars using the Stats NZ consumers price index, matching each week to its quarter. Weeks after June 2026 use the June quarter index and are provisional until the September quarter is published.
The cost component split is MBIE’s own and sums to its discounted retail price, which in recent years runs one to three cents below the board price. MBIE and Figure.NZ publish annual real price tables to 2024. The weekly real terms series and the inflation adjusted breakdown here are Newswire’s analysis.
What is petrol costing this week
Our fuel price tracker updates every Tuesday with the latest national price, the full cost breakdown and how this week compares with last year.
What is the cheapest petrol you can remember buying, and what year was it? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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