TRAFFIC was queued up outside the Metro service station in Clinton St on Friday, with the price for E10 unleaded down as low as $1.13c a litre.
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Even the regular unleaded was down as low as $1.17 a litre, similar to Sydney prices.
Many of the other service stations around town have kept their prices at around the $1.35-$1.39 a litre range.
Owner of the Goulburn Gateway service station, Bruce Makin ‘keeps his ear to the ground’ in relation to the difference in prices compared to Sydney.
“Metro is a subsidiary company owned by the Dib family,” Mr Makin said.
“They have a large share in the petrol market in the Sydney and Central Coast areas. Because they are such a large company, they are a bit like BHP where they can afford to charge a cheaper price if they want to.
Another example of what they did to lower prices was at the Caltex station at Marulan. They would drop the price to increase their sales immediately, then they would lease it out to a franchiser and would get a better return in the long run.”
Mr Makin said price levels would become very interesting next week with the Christmas traffic.
“The Dibs can afford to bring the price down in line with Sydney prices,” he said.
“A lot of other individuals in town don’t have this luxury. I mean if you look at the rest of Goulburn, most of the service stations are within a 3 to 4 cent difference of each other.
Even if you draw a parallel between say, Goulburn and the Southern Highlands, where they are paying upwards of $1.40 a litre, most service station operators still have to pay more because of freight costs if their fuel is transported from Sydney or Melbourne.”