NZ facing fourth-largest increase in fuel costs

New Zealanders are facing the fourth-highest increase in fuel costs in the world, on a per capita basis, new data shows.

Statistics from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air show that the global oil price shock this year has added US$468 billion (NZ$833b) to the world's fuel bill.

The United States has felt the largest impact, with an additional US$160b (NZ$285b) added to its fuel costs. Canada was just behind, followed by Australia and then New Zealand.

New Zealand had the 10th highest increase in diesel prices in the world compared to pre-conflict, up US55c (NZ99c) a litre.

Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said the impact was because New Zealand had high levels of car ownership.

"A lot of people don't live in very large, developed metropolitan areas where you have a lot of public transport available."

He said New Zealand's price movement was not as large on a per litre basis as some of the other countries in the report - Laos had experienced diesel jumping by US$1 (NZ$1.78) - because some developing countries had regulated fuel prices.

"What tends to happen in those cases is they sometimes have very large percentage moves when the government has to move what's typically a subsidised price up by a relatively long way when a big shock occurs. We don't really have that in New Zealand because fuel pricing basically reflects market pricing."

He said fuel spending was up 27 percent per person compared to the same time a year ago but the implied volume of fuel purchases was lower by about 12 percent.

"We're spending more, we're driving less, and you can see one of the effects of that in that public transport spending on our cards is also up 18 percent since February … so that does reflect a change in behaviour because the cost of driving has gone up."

He said New Zealand households were being disproportionately affected.

Many were having to spend money on fuel that might otherwise have gone on other things, including "nice-to-haves", he said.

"I think it's self-evident that, you know, if we hadn't seen this Iran war and the big increase in oil and fuel prices, then the economy would probably be stronger for it."

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said New Zealand was "very exposed" to the fuel price movements, not just because of the use of cars but because the cost of getting items to New Zealand was high. "We are quite dependent on imported products so everything is transported here."

Gaspy data shows that the average price of 91 on Thursday was $3.51, up 3 percent over 28 days. Diesel was at $3.17, up 1.46 percent.

Thursday is often a discount day for retailers.

The cheapest 91 petrol in the country was at Tasman Epsom, at $3.19.

Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.