Chaotic petrol prices hit wallets

EVERY Australian motorist could soon be paying over $2 a litre at the pump, as concerns grow the nation’s rising petrol prices could break records.

The Australian Institute of Petroleum revealed the average retail price of petrol last week was 199.1 cents a litre, a massive rise of 7.6 per cent from the week before.

In major cities like Sydney ($2.03), Melbourne ($2.05) and Brisbane ($2.06), the average petrol price exceeded $2, while it also crossed that barrier on average for the whole of Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

It comes after the fuel excise for petrol and diesel was halved for six months in this year’s federal budget after Russia’s war in Ukraine affected supply.

This resulted in the average price of petrol sinking to as low as $1.60 a litre during April.

But now prices are exceeding the previous eye-watering amounts reached in March, with NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury saying it was impossible to know what would happen next.