Just HOW much does it cost to produce a litre/gallon of petrol/gasoline ?

Here in my local neck of the woods (Adelaide, South Australia), the current going price for a litre of petrol is approximately $AUS 1.45 which in my opinion is quite steep.
Then driving around earlier this afternoon, the local news carried a report that, in their words, "petrol relief is in sight".
Great, I thought ... cheaper petrol must be on it's way with a fairly substantial drop, perhaps 10c a litre, perhaps if we are lucky as much as 15c a litre.
Then the report gives us the actual drop of ...(sense of anticipation and climax building) ... a piddly 4c a litre
Yeah, right ... that's their version of "petrol relief is in sight" ? Massive fail as far as I'm concerned

However, as I was tossing around how I'm going to spend my new found wealth that I'll be saving at the petrol bowsers shortly, it got me thinking ...

Just how much does it, on average, really cost the refinery to produce that litre of petrol that currently I'm paying $1.45 for ?

Does it cost them 25c or 50c or 75c or .... whatever ... to refine and process that litre of crude ?
Anyone have any rough estimates to throw in my direction ?

reply to post by tauristercus


My neck of the woods they are charging $1.40/L. This is absurd.

Every gas station in a 40 mile radius is exactly the same and will raise (barely lower) their prices at the EXACT same time. The price fixing has been rampant here for nearly 20 years. The last gas price war I can remember was in 1994. Since then I imagine the companies all got together and said "let's not do this anymore" and that was it.

Do you think our corrupt Competition Bureau (gov't agency overseeing Anti-trust laws and competion standards) has ever looked into this? ......NEVER!!

They're too busy hounding honest business owners who clearly are in other tremendously competive business areas. (who haven't greased the palm of bureaucrats)

This is what you get with a partial socialism though.


BTW: A good friend in the oil industry claims that for every 3 barrels of oil extracted in the oilsands, 2 barrels of oil are required to do it.

Here in Fairfield, Sydney, I get it for AUS $1.33 a litre.



Every day, without change.


They're a great little servo.

Oi,, im in Newcastle,, 160 a litre,, where getting robbed.

Originally posted by tauristercus
Here in my local neck of the woods (Adelaide, South Australia), the current going price for a litre of petrol is approximately $AUS 1.45 which in my opinion is quite steep.
Then driving around earlier this afternoon, the local news carried a report that, in their words, "petrol relief is in sight".
Great, I thought ... cheaper petrol must be on it's way with a fairly substantial drop, perhaps 10c a litre, perhaps if we are lucky as much as 15c a litre.
Then the report gives us the actual drop of ...(sense of anticipation and climax building) ... a piddly 4c a litre

Yeah, right ... that's their version of "petrol relief is in sight" ? Massive fail as far as I'm concerned

However, as I was tossing around how I'm going to spend my new found wealth that I'll be saving at the petrol bowsers shortly, it got me thinking ...

Just how much does it, on average, really cost the refinery to produce that litre of petrol that currently I'm paying $1.45 for ?

Does it cost them 25c or 50c or 75c or .... whatever ... to refine and process that litre of crude ?
Anyone have any rough estimates to throw in my direction ?

I don't have very much knowledge about oil processing. However, my mother works at a shell refinery as a instrumentation technician so I ask questions here and there. Her refinery and like most in the United States have a average profit margin of 1-4.5%. Any normal business would fail with these profit margins, but because oil companies have such a large profit margin out of country at other sites along with the high numbers at low profit margins in country, they are able to make a descent amount of money. Unfortunately oil refineries are not to blame for high gas prices, they purchase bulk oil directly from the shipping (tankers) companies that set the price they are given from the owners of the fields.

Hopefully I was able to shed some light for you.

Doing a rough calculation in my head, I think that here in my part of the US we are paying roughly a dollar a liter, or a little under...That's a pretty big difference compared to you guys when you consider that the USD and AUD are pretty similar, at least I thought they were. That is what I was thinking too, that when calculating price per barrel, you have to consider the energy that is consumed in the collection process.

Still though, these oil companies are making a killing. They are still price-gouging to the extreme, and have been for many years now...And I can assure you that American foreign policy has affected gas prices around the world, and that is a shame.

In comparison the UK is paying over 2 dollars for a litre of fuel. Count yourselves lucky.

For further clarification:


3.79 Litres= 1 U.S. Gallon

4.54 Litres= 1 Imperial Gallon (Canadian, Australian, UK)

$1.00 U.S = $1.017 Canadian
$1.00 U.S.= $1.012 Australian.
$1.00 U.S= .633 British Pound
$1.00 U.S= .783 Euro



The price the Aussies and Canadians pay for gas roughly equals $5.00-$5.50 a gallon U.S.

I highly doubt the Americans are paying near this price for gas. It looks like their involvement in the Middle East is paying off somewhat.

Heck, we have oilfields in our backyard and we pay a ridiculous amout for refinement.

It does not matter how much fuel costs, you will continue to pay whatever demands they give, even your childrens lives.
How so?
Work longer and harder to afford fuel all the while forsaking our kids nurturing, joining wars ourselves and a generation later sending our kids for the same reasons.
Fuel allows us to do what our friends and neighbors do, therefore we must keep up with the joneses.
Fuel gets us to massa's business so that we may slave for him.
They will make it as cheap as they can and sell it for as high as they possibly can.
That is how much a litre/ gallon costs.

They are probably pocketing at least 50%.

I don't see how we all sit there and let this happen. When cars were developed, we had the technology to make transport free for everyone (tesla technology) although it was wasn't quite ready for application into society. But then the gov and other powers that be decided that they would prefer to tax us for this priveledge.

Hense the use of fossil fuels

Now look at us, burning the planet and it's past away.

I'm not sure on the cost of manufacturer but here is the average price . £1.39 which is $2.22AUS for petrol and £1.41GBP $2.25AUS for Diesel here in quiet Norfolk, England so its not so bad in Oz

reply to post by Goldcurrent


its normally a 1 to 3 or 1 to 4 ratio for oil sands.Same ratio for tight oil.

reply to post by tauristercus


It costs about five pence (UK) per litre to produce...

The refiners sell it for about 45 pence per litre, the retailers add another 5 pence.

The rest my friends is fuel duty and VAT TAX !!!

Although Oil itself is $2.19 a Gallon or $0.58 a litre or $92 a Barrel.



Cosmic..

To the guys in the UK your rail & bus system more than makes up for the high price you pay and I "assume" your average travel distances for work-shopping-pleasure are less than us Aussies in majority of cases.
When I worked in a servo(mobile) 15 years ago one of my jobs was to drive round to all other servos in the area and write down their fuel price so it could be sent in to head office our price was then adjusted accordingly I also had a friend who's job was to do this over a large metro area for Shell, I could never understand how this was legal, it should cost what it costs.
Isn't diesel just the byproduct of making petrol? it used to be cheaper than ULP here yet now is more expensive.

The actual costs to refine will vary based upon the crude oil to be refined(Saudi light versus sour (high sulphur content) crude), but a good perspective to assess the cost is based upon the refining of a barrel of Saudi Light. A refiner can make 26 gallons of unleaded gasoline out of a 42 gallon barrel of oil. There are 17 gallons of other products, higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, paraffin, asphalt etc. Interestingly when one refines a 42 gallon barrel you actually get 43 gallons when you separate the molecules. These 17 gallons will normally pay for refining and marketing. So to find the break even cost of a gallon of gasoline at the pump simply take the latest commodity exchange price of WTI oil and divide by 26 to get the price with zero profit to the refiner and before taxes.To find break even in US$/liter divide that number by 3.79. Then in terms of your own currency convert as required. So at $100/bbl for WTI the break even price is $3.84/gallon. Add your local,state and federal prices and that is the price before profit. At least in the US the refinery margins are small unless there is something that has dramatically increased the value of the 17 gallon residual "slop" products.

Always keep in mind the the major oil companies are purchasers of crude oil not sellers. They do not produce as much oil as they refine. Therefore their incentives for high crude oil prices are less dramatic than the ignorant public realizes. Exxon makes money by selling gasoline not crude oil.

It costs less than 1 cent to produce 1 liter of oil.

this might help,

and yes,, probaly 10 cents a litre for Diesel and Fuel Oil #2

Highest & Cheapest Gas Prices by Country

Pump Pain Index

This Bloomberg index lists countries by gas price and by their citizens' pain at the pump.

Price.....Country.............Pain Rank
$9.69....Norway.......................#48
$9.37....Denmark....................#42
$9.35....Italy.............................#29
$9.35....Netherlands................#37
$9.23....Greece........................#23
$8.97....Sweden.......................#44
$8.89....Hong Kong..................#31
$8.85....Portugal......................#21
$8.84....United Kingdom..........#34
$8.82....Belgium......................#37
$8.72....France........................#35
$8.59....Finland........................#40
$8.56....Germany.....................#36
$8.34....Ireland.........................#39
$7.95....Switzerland.................#47
$7.93....Slovakia......................#19
$7.69....Hungary......................#11
$7.59....Czech Republic..........#22
$7.58....Japan..........................#41
$7.57....South Korea...............#26
$7.55....Spain..........................#32
$7.54....Slovenia......................#28
$7.45....Austria........................#43
$7.32....Malta...........................#25
$7.26....Latvia..........................#9
$7.24....Luxembourg...............#51
$7.24....Lithuania.....................#12
$7.05....Estonia.......................#20
$7.01....Poland........................#15
$6.97....Cyprus........................#33
$6.94....Bulgaria.......................#5
$6.75....Australia......................#49
$6.70....Singapore....................#45
$6.59....Romania.....................#7
$6.54....Chile............................#17
$6.41....Brazil...........................#13
$6.06....India............................#1
$5.75....Canada.......................#46
$5.72....South Africa................#8
$5.53....Seychelles..................#14
$5.44....Argentina.....................#16
$5.31....China...........................#4
$4.96....Thailand......................#6
$4.19....United States..............#50
$4.11....Indonesia....................#3
$3.71....Russia........................#29
$3.49....Malaysia......................#24
$3.20....Mexico.........................#27
$2.78....Iran..............................#18
$2.33....Nigeria.........................#2
$1.89....United Arab Emirates..#53
$1.73....Egypt...........................#10
$0.88....Kuwait.........................#54
$0.61....Saudi Arabia...............#52
$0.09....Venezuela...................#55


www.bloomberg.com...


Interesting,,assuming the story we hear all the time,,its a world price set by the global market conditions,,for instance,,,,
$5.75....Canada,,,i quote,,"Canada is the world's sixth-biggest oil producer and has a higher income per person than the U.S. These stats add up to cheap gas and little pain at the pump. Only Americans and Kuwaitis use more gas per capita than Canadians."
unquote,,,

"These stats add up to cheap gas and little pain at the pump"

what do u think,,little pain at the pump??

Anyone agree?

Me.

$0.09....Venezuela
I have a very nice mountain bike
28 speeds, front and rear suspension...
it is VERY yellow

$0.09
In Canada even bean gas is more expensive...
there is something NOT RIGHT with this picture

reply to post by Danbones


This is why the Corporatocracy has had it in for Chavez for so long. They can't stand to see the average person able to afford their natural resources. There's dollars to be made hand over fist over there.