January 13, 2026 • 10 mins
Terry Collins of the AA looks at what competition has meant for southern fuel prices, especially for Gore.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My gun.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Dream of Gow the Stone. Welcome back to the muster.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Now, before we wrap up, this is going to be
a really interesting chat. Terry Collins is principal policy advisor
for the AA. He's on the line, and you may
have noticed fuel down here in the South is pretty
cheap compared to arguably a lot of the rest of
the country. We can talk about the South service stations,
how they've come into the mainstream pretty much over the
(00:32):
past four or five years. But what exactly is it
about the South that gives us these prices for fuels
and what's going to happen over the next year or so. Terry,
thanks for joining us on the muster.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That's great and it could be here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Firstly, why is Gore arguably a hotbed for fuel prices?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
One word competition? What's happened over the last few years
abdicade ago maybe two, we had something known as the
gull effect, and that was a model cost model with
a pump, abows, a card reader, nobody on site, and
some lights and they had low overheads. What they started
getting traction in the market. And then MPD came along,
(01:11):
Why Tomo came along, some of the big guys like
z rechange the logos as you go. VP of Mobile
are now doing other sites that are just following it model.
So what model is is they reduced the costs as
much as possible to deliver it to you, and they
rely upon volume, small margin, big volume. That creates competition
(01:32):
because that's fighting with everybody in your area for there
to get my fill up when you go to the
service station, and they're doing that by op on the
cheaper posts.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Because off the top of my head we've got at
least five self service fuel stations and Gore two of
the big boys who are big players in there as
such as well. So this will pretty much be the
reason around that, I suppose very much.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And everybody's copying the model two is out. Funnily enough,
we don't like volume shin fill. No, it's a fellymogeneous product.
Doesn't really matter who makes it. It still powers our
car the same way. And so what you can lie
upon if you've got a similar stand in the fuel
nearly the big determinate is the price you payer.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So let's proposed merger between gallon MPD for example, if
it goes through, they've got separate stations here in Gored
is that going to have any.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Effect at all?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
The Commerce Commission will look at the locality of those stores.
There are a couple around. We've got one and ceb
and Wellington with the two of them are together, and
what they'll try to do is divest themselves and perhaps
one of them that maybe what they call requirement is
so that they don't have it and immediately the same area.
But potentially it makes common sense as kind of merger.
(02:41):
What happened was Goal was zoned by investment company that
they had to sell it. When Z bought Z was
purchased by Ample, which was Celtic's Australia and if they
hadn't sold the Goal, we would have over fifty one
percent in the market and the Commerce Commission wasn't going
to about it, so they had to sell Goal. Investment
Company brought it. They're in the business and making investments MPD.
(03:06):
He has a fifty year old South whileign company with
a long experience of running petrol ones. So you've got
a relatively sharp management teams. You've got all the logistics,
mainly in the South for MPD and mainly in the
north of Goal. You've got timor oial services or the
depoting and timarufa MPD and you've got the depoting and
mount or for Goal. Also, when they sold Goal, they
(03:28):
had a five year contract to have well supplied to
him from Ampole Australia. That's halfway through that contract. So
combining these two smaller companies into a larger companies means
they have more buying pair and the Singapore finery so
they can get cheaper fuel. They'll have a lower overheads.
Teachers weld to use the logistics trucking in their storage
(03:48):
units more efficiently, and hopefully all those savings that they're
going to make gets passed on to us for the notice.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Terry, would you say there's still room in the market
for smaller players, independent players to come into the fuel game.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I think there's not a barrier to entry. I think basically,
if you can secure your fuel source, there's actually building
and the resource consent for the service station, they're not
particularly difficult. The technology is there. It's a card reader,
it's the bousands which would be making for years, and
I'm just connecting you all up and making it easy
to use.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Regarding the price of fuel, is a geographic location that
effectively makes new Zealand. The captive market heads our pricing.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, what we find when we look at all the
analysis of the fuel is that we get variances price
within regions and between regions, and really it just comes
down to that competition and what day of the week
also you buy it. So you can talk about an
average price, We really no such thing because they very
up and down. But if you added them all up,
you would get an average. What the companies doing on
certain days of the week. They off or good discounts
(04:49):
and gullts on tuesdays and so what you tend to
find is that Monday, Tuesday, chup fuel, Tuesday Wednesday chup fuel.
But then the prices wouldn't they go up, but they
go back to the original level over the weekend because
we know that we've got the weekend off of m tram,
the boat up and take the car out, do all
those other things. So they know that market, that sustainable
(05:09):
volume is going to be there over the days. It's
only those other quieter days in the beginning has been
they offer a good discount, so you want to fill
up the pace to fill up look around on those
julier parts of week around Tuesday, around Tuesday, those kind
of days, and they usually the best price office.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
As far as the conflicts that are occurrying around the world,
how much does that impact on air pricing.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It can. We saught it was the Russian Ukrainian one,
but remember Russia was the third largest oil producer at
the time, and so that we had a beg impact.
We didn't see the same with this master attack on
Israel because neither was a oil producer. The current issue
around Venezuela. Venezuela has got the world's largest oil reserves,
but they can't really turn on production that the production
(05:51):
has been declined in about a third of what they
did a decade ago. They put out lest in a
million barrels a day, and rural demand right now is
about one hundred and two billions, So they were an
insignificant player. The last couple of days I've seen the
price of international will go up because of the Chess
meeting from Trump. Iran around as an oil supplier, and
so the kind of the gamblers and the market so
(06:13):
to speak, have just been pricing in a little bit
of risk around that. We've got plenty of oil out
there in the world. There's no shortage of it, and
so these prices rarely, we hope, particularly in the serist
quarter of twenty twenty six, will be about what they
are here. They shouldn't go.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Up, so it should stay pretty relative to where we are.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Because considering what's happened with Venezuela and Donald Trump saying
he's taking over the oil reserves and the likes for
the interim anyway, we're not going to see much of
a rebound of markets around the world because that was
a big concern.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
No, not particularly. Look at the other thing about that Venezuela.
That's what's known as heavy and seer, so it's got
a lot of salt for in it, and you Texas
specialized refinery to crack it. They have those refineries, find
them around Louisiana and Texas. The US optimized their ones,
so it will be handy and benefit globally. We'll globally
(07:07):
we'd had a bit of a tight supply around diesel.
Hopefully that will put more diesel on the market and
drop the paces of the diesel a little bit.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
As far as Marston Point Refinery closing, what impact does that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Had It's had done really, what it's took away some
of our security of supply. But we were never refining
New Zealand. Will we produce a world which is called
light and sweet. It's good for making gasoline and it
doesn't have much sulfur which makes it a really handy fuel.
And we were seeing it to refineries in Australia, if
(07:38):
not to Marsden Point because Marsden Point was optimized to
refine a heavier type of crude. Now all we're doing
is going up to Singapore, Korean, none of the Asian
refineries and saying here's the specification of our fuel. Who
can give you the best price.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So regarding the fuel that's supplied by the companies is
not a lot of you know, they talk about the
quality of the full certain players being better than others.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Is that just a myth?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah? Look, if there's a little is about two cents
libert lest some two cents called the engine oil monetary levy,
and that goes towards trading standard. I used to be
a trading standard's officer, so I know this one for
many years. And they go out and they sample the fuel,
and every sample I've seen so far that the publicly
disclosed usually means the octane level of the fuel is
(08:25):
greater than what it's been disclosed.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now, underesting insight there, Terry. Thanks for your time, and
like we say, you just got to go into your
due diligence and find out when these fuel the prices
occur because like you say, the starting near the end
of the week is when you're going to find.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Them, right, Yeah, and I'll just get the right fuel
for the car. You've got a high compression modern so
it could pasted us to seep because if you need
it to the high compression so, yeah, vehicle does it knock.
Other than that, there's not a lot of calipheic values,
a lot of energy, but difference between the two it's
only around what your compression ate is the car is
what fuel should you should be using. The supers are
a bit cleaner, they've got a detergent in it, so
they'll run it. Realistically, the standards all the same. The
(09:02):
fuel's pretty much the same. And unless you've got a
classic car whi's fifty sixty years old or something where
you might need to run a edit. Because of the
velve students, they used to put me in a petrol
to lubricate them, and they used to be the boproduct
and lubricating the velves. That's about the only thing to
worry about.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
There's plenty of those vehicles running around.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Good Terry Collins, AA Principal Policy Advisor, Thanks very much
for your time on the muster.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Thanks ady, have a good day now. This laugh out
loud with AG proud because life on the land can
be a laughing matter.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Brought to us by sheer Well Data working to help
the livestock farmer. Why is bacon called bacon and cookies
called cookies? When you cook bacon and bake cookies mean
my gun? Something to ponder this afternoon. That's us over
and done with. My name's Andy Muer. This has been
the Muster on Hock and Nuigs de Peters Genetics Joy
(09:57):
the afternoon podcast going up shortly.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
See you tomorrow one o'clock. Mm hmm
My gun.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Dream of Gow the Stone. Welcome back to the muster.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Now, before we wrap up, this is going to be
a really interesting chat. Terry Collins is principal policy advisor
for the AA. He's on the line, and you may
have noticed fuel down here in the South is pretty
cheap compared to arguably a lot of the rest of
the country. We can talk about the South service stations,
how they've come into the mainstream pretty much over the
(00:32):
past four or five years. But what exactly is it
about the South that gives us these prices for fuels
and what's going to happen over the next year or so. Terry,
thanks for joining us on the muster.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That's great and it could be here.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Firstly, why is Gore arguably a hotbed for fuel prices?
Speaker 1 (00:51):
One word competition? What's happened over the last few years
abdicade ago maybe two, we had something known as the
gull effect, and that was a model cost model with
a pump, abows, a card reader, nobody on site, and
some lights and they had low overheads. What they started
getting traction in the market. And then MPD came along,
(01:11):
Why Tomo came along, some of the big guys like
z rechange the logos as you go. VP of Mobile
are now doing other sites that are just following it model.
So what model is is they reduced the costs as
much as possible to deliver it to you, and they
rely upon volume, small margin, big volume. That creates competition
(01:32):
because that's fighting with everybody in your area for there
to get my fill up when you go to the
service station, and they're doing that by op on the
cheaper posts.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Because off the top of my head we've got at
least five self service fuel stations and Gore two of
the big boys who are big players in there as
such as well. So this will pretty much be the
reason around that, I suppose very much.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And everybody's copying the model two is out. Funnily enough,
we don't like volume shin fill. No, it's a fellymogeneous product.
Doesn't really matter who makes it. It still powers our
car the same way. And so what you can lie
upon if you've got a similar stand in the fuel
nearly the big determinate is the price you payer.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
So let's proposed merger between gallon MPD for example, if
it goes through, they've got separate stations here in Gored
is that going to have any.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Effect at all?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
The Commerce Commission will look at the locality of those stores.
There are a couple around. We've got one and ceb
and Wellington with the two of them are together, and
what they'll try to do is divest themselves and perhaps
one of them that maybe what they call requirement is
so that they don't have it and immediately the same area.
But potentially it makes common sense as kind of merger.
(02:41):
What happened was Goal was zoned by investment company that
they had to sell it. When Z bought Z was
purchased by Ample, which was Celtic's Australia and if they
hadn't sold the Goal, we would have over fifty one
percent in the market and the Commerce Commission wasn't going
to about it, so they had to sell Goal. Investment
Company brought it. They're in the business and making investments MPD.
(03:06):
He has a fifty year old South whileign company with
a long experience of running petrol ones. So you've got
a relatively sharp management teams. You've got all the logistics,
mainly in the South for MPD and mainly in the
north of Goal. You've got timor oial services or the
depoting and timarufa MPD and you've got the depoting and
mount or for Goal. Also, when they sold Goal, they
(03:28):
had a five year contract to have well supplied to
him from Ampole Australia. That's halfway through that contract. So
combining these two smaller companies into a larger companies means
they have more buying pair and the Singapore finery so
they can get cheaper fuel. They'll have a lower overheads.
Teachers weld to use the logistics trucking in their storage
(03:48):
units more efficiently, and hopefully all those savings that they're
going to make gets passed on to us for the notice.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Terry, would you say there's still room in the market
for smaller players, independent players to come into the fuel game.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I think there's not a barrier to entry. I think basically,
if you can secure your fuel source, there's actually building
and the resource consent for the service station, they're not
particularly difficult. The technology is there. It's a card reader,
it's the bousands which would be making for years, and
I'm just connecting you all up and making it easy
to use.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Regarding the price of fuel, is a geographic location that
effectively makes new Zealand. The captive market heads our pricing.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, what we find when we look at all the
analysis of the fuel is that we get variances price
within regions and between regions, and really it just comes
down to that competition and what day of the week
also you buy it. So you can talk about an
average price, We really no such thing because they very
up and down. But if you added them all up,
you would get an average. What the companies doing on
certain days of the week. They off or good discounts
(04:49):
and gullts on tuesdays and so what you tend to
find is that Monday, Tuesday, chup fuel, Tuesday Wednesday chup fuel.
But then the prices wouldn't they go up, but they
go back to the original level over the weekend because
we know that we've got the weekend off of m tram,
the boat up and take the car out, do all
those other things. So they know that market, that sustainable
(05:09):
volume is going to be there over the days. It's
only those other quieter days in the beginning has been
they offer a good discount, so you want to fill
up the pace to fill up look around on those
julier parts of week around Tuesday, around Tuesday, those kind
of days, and they usually the best price office.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
As far as the conflicts that are occurrying around the world,
how much does that impact on air pricing.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
It can. We saught it was the Russian Ukrainian one,
but remember Russia was the third largest oil producer at
the time, and so that we had a beg impact.
We didn't see the same with this master attack on
Israel because neither was a oil producer. The current issue
around Venezuela. Venezuela has got the world's largest oil reserves,
but they can't really turn on production that the production
(05:51):
has been declined in about a third of what they
did a decade ago. They put out lest in a
million barrels a day, and rural demand right now is
about one hundred and two billions, So they were an
insignificant player. The last couple of days I've seen the
price of international will go up because of the Chess
meeting from Trump. Iran around as an oil supplier, and
so the kind of the gamblers and the market so
(06:13):
to speak, have just been pricing in a little bit
of risk around that. We've got plenty of oil out
there in the world. There's no shortage of it, and
so these prices rarely, we hope, particularly in the serist
quarter of twenty twenty six, will be about what they
are here. They shouldn't go.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Up, so it should stay pretty relative to where we are.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Because considering what's happened with Venezuela and Donald Trump saying
he's taking over the oil reserves and the likes for
the interim anyway, we're not going to see much of
a rebound of markets around the world because that was
a big concern.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
No, not particularly. Look at the other thing about that Venezuela.
That's what's known as heavy and seer, so it's got
a lot of salt for in it, and you Texas
specialized refinery to crack it. They have those refineries, find
them around Louisiana and Texas. The US optimized their ones,
so it will be handy and benefit globally. We'll globally
(07:07):
we'd had a bit of a tight supply around diesel.
Hopefully that will put more diesel on the market and
drop the paces of the diesel a little bit.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
As far as Marston Point Refinery closing, what impact does that.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Had It's had done really, what it's took away some
of our security of supply. But we were never refining
New Zealand. Will we produce a world which is called
light and sweet. It's good for making gasoline and it
doesn't have much sulfur which makes it a really handy fuel.
And we were seeing it to refineries in Australia, if
(07:38):
not to Marsden Point because Marsden Point was optimized to
refine a heavier type of crude. Now all we're doing
is going up to Singapore, Korean, none of the Asian
refineries and saying here's the specification of our fuel. Who
can give you the best price.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So regarding the fuel that's supplied by the companies is
not a lot of you know, they talk about the
quality of the full certain players being better than others.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Is that just a myth?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah? Look, if there's a little is about two cents
libert lest some two cents called the engine oil monetary levy,
and that goes towards trading standard. I used to be
a trading standard's officer, so I know this one for
many years. And they go out and they sample the fuel,
and every sample I've seen so far that the publicly
disclosed usually means the octane level of the fuel is
(08:25):
greater than what it's been disclosed.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now, underesting insight there, Terry. Thanks for your time, and
like we say, you just got to go into your
due diligence and find out when these fuel the prices
occur because like you say, the starting near the end
of the week is when you're going to find.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Them, right, Yeah, and I'll just get the right fuel
for the car. You've got a high compression modern so
it could pasted us to seep because if you need
it to the high compression so, yeah, vehicle does it knock.
Other than that, there's not a lot of calipheic values,
a lot of energy, but difference between the two it's
only around what your compression ate is the car is
what fuel should you should be using. The supers are
a bit cleaner, they've got a detergent in it, so
they'll run it. Realistically, the standards all the same. The
(09:02):
fuel's pretty much the same. And unless you've got a
classic car whi's fifty sixty years old or something where
you might need to run a edit. Because of the
velve students, they used to put me in a petrol
to lubricate them, and they used to be the boproduct
and lubricating the velves. That's about the only thing to
worry about.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
There's plenty of those vehicles running around.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Good Terry Collins, AA Principal Policy Advisor, Thanks very much
for your time on the muster.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Thanks ady, have a good day now. This laugh out
loud with AG proud because life on the land can
be a laughing matter.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Brought to us by sheer Well Data working to help
the livestock farmer. Why is bacon called bacon and cookies
called cookies? When you cook bacon and bake cookies mean
my gun? Something to ponder this afternoon. That's us over
and done with. My name's Andy Muer. This has been
the Muster on Hock and Nuigs de Peters Genetics Joy
(09:57):
the afternoon podcast going up shortly.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
See you tomorrow one o'clock. Mm hmm
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.