Queensland E10 Slips Under 181 but the Gap to Unleaded Is Barely Worth It
Right, so here's one that gets thrown at me at smoko about once a fortnight: is E10 actually saving you anything, or are we all just kidding ourselves? The numbers out of Queensland this weekend give me a decent excuse to sit down and work it out properly.
As of 26th Jul 2026 2:06pm AEST, servos around Coopers Plains on the southside of Brisbane are pumping E10 at 180.2 cents a litre, down 7.7 cents on where it sat earlier in the week. Standard unleaded at the same servos has eased 8 cents to 181.9. Both are heading the right way and both are cheaper than what most of the country is copping, so no complaints from me there.
What caught my eye is the gap between the two, which is one point seven cents. That's the entire discount you get for picking E10 over regular unleaded at those pumps.
The bit nobody mentions at the bowser
E10 is petrol with about ten per cent ethanol through it, and ethanol carries less energy per litre than straight petrol does. Your engine burns through it a touch quicker as a result. Most figures put the difference at around three per cent, depending on what you drive and how heavy your right foot is.
So do the sums on a 60 litre fill. E10 at 180.2 costs you $108.12 and unleaded at 181.9 costs you $109.14, so you're a dollar and two cents better off at the counter. Then you hand back roughly three per cent of your range, which on a tank that size is about $3.24 worth of fuel. Fair dinkum, you're going backwards. Not by much, but you're still behind.
That doesn't make E10 a con, mind you. When the gap sits at four or five cents, which it does plenty of the time, E10 wins comfortably and I'll happily chuck it in. The rule I go by is that E10 has to be at least three cents under the unleaded on the same board, otherwise it isn't worth the bother. Right now on the Brisbane southside, it isn't. Have a squiz at the gap in your own patch on the E10 prices page and put it next to unleaded petrol prices for the same area before you commit.
Oh, and if your car is older than about 2000, or it's a bike, check the manual before you put E10 anywhere near it. Some of them don't love the stuff.
Up the highway, the gaps get interesting
Head north out of the city and the story shifts. Bundaberg diesel is sitting on an average of 215.9 with less than a cent and a half between the cheapest and the dearest servo in town, so the operators up there are clearly keeping an eye on each other. Hervey Bay is on 218.1 and Maryborough matches it, though the cheapest pump in Maryborough is down at 211.5 if you know which one to pull into.
Inland is where it gets messy. Gatton has the widest spread going around, 207.6 at the cheapest and 227.9 at the dearest, so there's a bit over 20 cents riding on which driveway you turn into. Murgon is much the same at 209.9 against 228.9. Gin Gin keeps everyone honest with the whole town inside 4 cents, and Monkland just out of Gympie is holding the cheapest average in the state at 215.2.
Queensland diesel as a whole has lifted 1.4 cents to a state average of 228.9. Modest by recent standards, and still respectable next to the Northern Territory on 270.5.
What I'd do this week
If you're running unleaded around Brisbane, fill while the southside is under 182, because these dips don't tend to hang about. Anyone weighing up E10 should do the three cent test at the board rather than filling out of habit. And if you're heading up the Bruce or out through the Lockyer, don't take the first servo you see, because 20 cents in the same town is real money.
Look, end of the day, thirty seconds of checking means more cash in your pocket for the important stuff. Can't argue with that.
