With brisbane diesel at record highs it’s no surprise that road transporters are lusting after electric vehicles and hybrid trucks. But will we ever get our hands on them here in Australia? At the Brisbane Truck Show, some vendors were already selling zero emission big rigs, but it was a minority. And that’s a shame because heavy road transport accounts for seven per cent of Australia’s emissions.

Wholesale petrol and diesel prices both decreased this week, but pump prices have yet to reflect that. The gap between wholesale and retail is currently 20cpl – and it could take weeks for that to close. “This is partly because diesel is a lot more exposed to international factors than petrol and it’s not immune to local price cycles,” says RACQ’s Dr Ian Jeffreys.

Rev Up in Brisbane: A Comprehensive Guide to Diesel Performance and Maintenance

Currently, a typical litre of petrol in Brisbane costs 114.3cpl while a litre of diesel is 116.9cpl, which is the national average. Prices in Sydney and Melbourne are slightly higher.

In contrast, Queenslanders can find the cheapest fuel in the country at the Lytton fuel import terminal. There are also a number of discount fuels at service stations around the state, which offer cheaper prices than their metropolitan counterparts.

In other fuel news, Caltex is spending $250 million at its Kurnell refinery to reduce the amount of benzene in petrol and sulfur in diesel. The project will include an oxygen-free thermal decomposition process to produce pyrolysis oil and new gasification units. It will also upgrade a containment bund and add a second fuel tank. The project is expected to be completed in 2022.