Energy prices
Real and nominal price data relating to New Zealand’s energy prices — petrol, diesel, fuel oil, natural gas and electricity.
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Price data tables
These tables contain petrol, diesel, fuel oil, natural gas and electricity price data for New Zealand.
Revisions to previously published data: The Ministry has improved the methodology for producing some of the energy prices statistics, as well as updating some historical data. This has resulted in changes to previously-published data. These are detailed further in the Energy prices data tables.
Price data is:
- presented in units typical for each fuel — such as cents/litre for petrol and diesel, or cents/kWh for electricity
- displayed on a calendar year basis, in both real (adjusted for inflation) and nominal terms, for all available years
- presented in New Zealand dollars, and inclusive of all applicable taxes and levies:
- industrial and commercial prices exclude Goods and Services Tax (GST) as these sectors can generally reclaim the GST component
- wholesale prices are assumed to relate to the commercial sector so exclude GST
- residential prices include GST as residential customers generally can't reclaim the GST component.
Price comparison between fuels
To aid price comparison between fuels, prices are also presented by energy content in dollars per gigajoule (GJ). However, we recommend you take care when comparing prices on an energy content basis. Direct inter-fuel comparisons on this basis don't allow for differences in end-use efficiency, which can vary between fuel and application.
Fuel-specific price monitoring
For more detailed fuel-specific price monitoring, see:
Historical control of energy prices
Although fuel prices are now market-driven, historically many were under some form of price control:
- The wholesale prices of diesel and petrol were controlled until July 1987 and May 1988 respectively.
- Gas prices were under price control until 1993.
- Before electricity sector reforms, which began in the late 1980s, electricity prices were influenced by the need for government approval of wholesale prices.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand License(external link).
Where you can find international comparisons
You can access comparisons of New Zealand energy statistics with those of other countries directly from the International Energy Agency website.