Three Goulburn Servos Sit at 229.9 for Unleaded While the Big Brands Ask 15 Cents More

Three Goulburn Servos Sit at 229.9 for Unleaded While the Big Brands Ask 15 Cents More

Right, so school holidays are around the corner and half of Sydney is about to point the car down the Hume. I've done that run more times than I can count, and the question at smoko never changes. Where do you fill up? I had a proper look at Goulburn this morning, and fair dinkum, it all comes down to which driveway you turn into.

What Goulburn is paying

As of Sunday 20th Sep 2026 8:10am AEST, unleaded across 14 Goulburn servos is averaging 238.6 a litre. That average hides a fair bit, though, because there's a big gap between the cheap boards and the dear ones.

At the bottom, three servos are sitting on 229.9. That's Metro Petroleum, the Hill & Co Metro depot and Arko Energy. Budget is next at 235.9, then Mobil at 236.9, and after that you're into the big brands. The Ampol Foodary is on 241.9, the two Shell Reddy Express sites are on 242.9, and both EG Ampol stations are asking 244.9. The BP sits on top at 249.7.

Here's the thing, right. That's 15 cents between the independents and the EG Ampol sites, and near enough to 20 cents from bottom to top, in a town you can drive across in ten minutes. The Metro Petroleum site and one of the EG Ampol sites are about 300 metres apart as the crow flies. On a 50 litre tank, 15 cents is $7.50. That's a schooner, give or take, for picking a different driveway.

E10: do the sums first

E10 is where people trip up. Metro Petroleum, Arko and Budget all have it at 227.9, with Mobil at 228.9. Trouble is, the usual rule of thumb says a car burns around 3 per cent more fuel on E10. At these prices that works out to about 7 cents a litre, so E10 needs to be 7 cents cheaper before it puts you in front.

At Metro and Arko the gap to unleaded is only 2 cents, so take the unleaded. At Budget and Mobil the gap is 8 cents, which just gets E10 over the line. The big brands have E10 anywhere from 237.8 to 242.9, and that's dearer than straight unleaded at the independents. You'd be mad to cop that. The E10 prices page lets you line the two fuels up before you leave home.

Where Goulburn sits on the run

Out my way, 48 servos within five kilometres of Fairfield are averaging 233.8 for unleaded, and the cheapest is 223.5 down in Lansvale. So if you're leaving from Western Sydney, fill up before you go. I can't find anywhere on the highway that beats home.

At the other end, Canberra is the dear one. Across 105 servos in the ACT, unleaded is averaging 245.5 this morning. Marcus Riley went through the reasons on this blog yesterday, so I'll leave the why to him. Goulburn's three cheapest are 15.6 cents under that Canberra average, and closer to the border the three Yass servos I can see are all sitting on exactly 240.9. If you need a top up on the way down, Goulburn's the place, as long as you turn into one of the three on 229.9.

Same deal for the diesel drivers

Diesel's been the rough one lately. When I wrote about Oberon last Monday, the NSW average was 262.8, and this morning it's 284.0. That's 21 cents in six days, although the last 24 hours only added about a cent.

Across 16 Goulburn servos, diesel runs from 269.9 at Metro Petroleum and the Hill & Co depot up to 291.9 at the dear end. That bottom price is 14 cents under the state average and 28 cents under the ACT average of 298.1. On a 70 litre ute tank that ACT gap is near enough to twenty bucks, so if you're towing the van south, it's worth a stop. The diesel prices page is the one to watch.

What I'd do

Leave Sydney full. If you need more on the way, pull into Goulburn and read the board before you commit, because the dearest of the fifteen is 20 cents over the cheapest. And don't roll into Canberra on empty. That's the dearest fill on the whole trip.

Prices move, so check the unleaded petrol prices the morning you leave. If you want to know what the detour is worth on your own tank, run it through the savings calculator.

Look, end of the day, it's the same town and the same trip. Fifteen cents a litre for turning into a different driveway is money back in your pocket for the important stuff. Can't argue with that.