The developing crisis in the Crimea is having an unwanted side effect for grey nomads in Australia … it’s set to drive the price of fuel sky high.
The seizure of Ukrainian-held territory by Russian troops has coincided with the weakening of the Aussie dollar to potentially drive the price of taking the Big Lap through the roof.
Queensland’s peak motoring body, the RACQ, has forecast the price of unleaded fuel will probably will rise to a new record high this month.
RACQ spokesperson Renee Smith told the ABC that said that just a week into the month, the average ULP price in southeast Queensland was already close to the record set in January.
“On January 2, there was a record daily average for ULP of 165.5cpl in Brisbane,” Ms Smith said. Â “While we don’t expect to break that record during the current price cycle, we can’t rule it out later in the month. The peak of the next price cycle is expected to occur in the next two to three weeks.”
Ms Smith told the ABC there were several contributing factors to the increasing prices.
“Any weakening of the Australian dollar will place upward pressure on the local price of oil and fuel,” she said. “If tensions between Russia and the West worsen this may also lead to further increases in oil prices.”
During February, the average cost of ULP in Brisbane was 4.9cpl more expensive than Adelaide, 4.5cpl higher than Sydney, prices were 4.4cpl up on Melbourne and 3.2cpl pricier than Perth.
“Warwick had the cheapest ULP in the state last month, with an average of 152.4cpl.
The RACQ urged motorists to take the time to shop around and potentially save themselves hundreds of dollars each year.
Are you feeling the pain at the bowser? What the most you have paid recently for a litre of diesel or unleaded. Do you shop around to keep fuel costs down? Comment below.
I think we are all well aware of the fuel prices.. It does make me wonder about how easily the media likes to resort to SCARE tactics… The publisher of the Grey Nomad included…
The fact as I see it is. By the time you get to the grey nomad stage you have had to make some serious decisions on everything from selling the house, evicting the kids, leaving the wife, shooting the dog, where to hide your money and what will you eat…. The price of fuel is important but more important is the fact that you are bloody well determined to get out there and travel…
What that leaves you with is not so much the price of fuel but no cost or very low cost camping. $30 a night for camp sites is absurd and buys a lot of fuel.. With web sites and applications like Wikicamps we are suddenly in charge again and can plan our journey accordingly.
As the publisher of Grey Nomads lets change the headlines to reflect a more positive outlook and use a headline like
USING MODERN TECHNIQUES TO LIMIT FUEL COSTS
or
TECHNOLOGY USE TO SAVE FUEL.
Don’t you think that sounds better?
Yup more scare tactics to justify the rise in PROFITS for the fuel companies and the hike in revenue for Governments.
Normally we get the old adage fuel is on the up because we are going into the Northern Winter and fuel will be scarcer. Notice it very rarely drops back to the original price. Now we have a scare campaign about Russia and Crimea. This only a week after sanctions against Iraq were totally lifted.(Did you see any reports about that?) Iraq has now lifted it’s oil exports to a 28 year high.
If you look back over the reported oil discoveries of the last ten years from around the world. Well all this doom and gloom is just that .Manipulation to make bigger and bigger profits.
The UN released a report last week that the wealth of the bottom half of the worlds population is exceeded by the wealth of 85 of the wealthiest people on the planet.
That means 85 people have more that 3.5 BILLION of the worlds poorest people.
How many of those 85 make their money from oil and it’s related products?
I would like to add a comment re technology in the modern car. How long was research into fuel saving technology kept back by the major car companies?
If Mitsubishi is now bringing out a HYBRID SUV that does two litres per hundred K’s , how much further on would we be if research had not been stymied. That the car companies like Honda and others steamrolled the electric cars and stopped production and research.
Now we have all electric cars that can go for 250 K’s on one charge and be recharged in 5 Hrs overnight on off peak power.
The Toyota Prius that all the Taxi firms are using because in the scheme of thing the fuel savings make it so economical because the car is paid for in around four years just in fuel savings alone.
Diesel cars with so much power and so much quieter than the old ones ,You would be hard pressed to know from performance that they were diesels.
Yup more doom and gloom from oil companies and now we can blame the Russians.
Remember the greens going on and on and on about 10 years ago about how we have hit Peak Oil Production and there’ll be no petrol in the next few years. Just pure Bunkum to say the least.
Yeah, why doesn’t the price come back down after the northern winter?
Using coal fired power stations to make electricity to charge electric cars, oh yeah, this is really helping the planet out. Another wheelbarrow the greens are pushing.