Wholesale vs retail margins
Stations buy fuel via contracts linked to benchmarks (Singapore Mogas 95 for petrol categories, gasoil-linked grades for diesel, etc.). Wholesale moves when refining margins, crude, freight and regional demand shift — your board price usually follows with a lag, then local competition decides whether you see the whole move Wednesday afternoon or stretched across several days at different sites along the same arterial.
The Melbourne price cycle ("near me" reality)
Melbourne's trough-to-peak pattern is not secrecy — retailers know commuters search cheap petrol near me on Tuesday and highest petrol prices Melbourneheading into weekends. Same city, postcode-to-postcode deltas can exceed 25¢/L while that cycle plays out, which is exactly why suburb-level comparisons beat a single metro average if you're topping up between meetings or school runs.
Tax floor
Federal excise and GST create a predictable tax component on each litre. Absolute pump prices oscillate sharply from retail rivalry, but the tax-inclusive floor means there is never a weekday where every site is arbitrarily cheap independent of GST reporting and credit-card settlement quirks you see inside POS terminals.