The Australian fuel price cycle, explained

Published on 2026-09-22

Nowhere else does the pump price behave quite like this: a slow slide of 30 or 40 cents over a couple of weeks, then a single morning where every servo in the city goes back up at once. It has nothing to do with the oil price.

What is actually happening

The cycle is a competitive pattern, not a cost pattern. After a restoration, one retailer shaves a cent to win volume, others follow, and the price grinds down day after day until margins get thin. Then a major moves first and restores, and the rest follow within about 48 hours.

Because the down phase is slow and the up phase is abrupt, the average driver who fills up at random pays noticeably more than the driver who fills up in the last few days of the slide.

How long is the cycle where you live

It varies by city and it drifts over time — historically anywhere from about two weeks to more than a month in the larger capitals. There is no fixed day of the week to rely on, which is why the old "fill up on Tuesday" advice stopped working.

Regional towns often do not cycle at all. With fewer competing sites there is nothing to trigger the undercutting, so the price sits higher and steadier than the city's low point.

How to tell where you are

The tell is the spread, not the level. Late in the slide, the gap between the cheapest and dearest servo in town is wide: the discounters have cut hard and the rest have not. Just after a restoration, everything clusters near the top.

So a day when Refil shows a big spread is usually a good day to fill up, and a day when every nearby servo shows nearly the same high price is usually the morning after.

What to do about it

Keep the tank above a quarter so you are never forced to buy on a restoration morning. Fill right up when the price is low rather than topping up out of habit.

And set a target price in the app: if you tell Refil what you are willing to pay, it can tell you when the cycle gets there instead of you checking every day.

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