Petrol prices are rising as the Covid vaccines roll out and global economic confidence builds, leading to higher crude oil prices.

According to price comparison app, Gaspy, the price of 91 octane petrol ranged from $1.99 to $2.20.

AA Petrolwatch spokesman Mark Stockdale says fuel price hikes have been the result of rising global commodity prices.

'Prices are the highest they've been all year,” says Stockdale.

'In March last year when countries went into lockdown, there was a big decrease in the commodity price. That's gradually reversed as confidence went up and economies are recovering.”

Gull general manager Dave Bodger says the average price for 91 octane petrol in December 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic reached New Zealand, was about $2.15 a litre.

On Wednesday, the average price for 91 petrol at Gull was $1.97, slightly lower than pre-Covid but 11 cents higher than the average during the April lockdown.

Infometrics senior economist Brad Olsen says the fuel prices are increasing due to buoyant prices overseas.

Olsen says a combination of optimism around being closer to turning a corner on Covid-19 with vaccine rollouts, and restrictions on oil production had put more pressure on supply, raising the price.

On Tuesday, oil prices in the United States closed up on 13-month highs as extreme weather caused some of the biggest refineries in North America to shut down.

Olsen says there is potential for fuel prices to rise further over the next few months.

Stockdale says it will still be some time before the effects of the Fuel Industry Bill to boost competition in the wholesale fuel industry, passed in early August, are felt.

The bill is the government's response to recommendations to the Commerce Commission's fuel market study.

Most of the recommendations from the commission's review had 12 to 18 month deadlines from when the bill passed August 2020, Stockdale says.

But Bodger says a number of Gull petrol stations have started implementing some recommendations.

He says new service stations are displaying the price of premium petrol, which was one of the recommendations by the Commission that had a deadline of February 2022.

Motorists who buy premium petrol would have noticed a slightly lower price than before, because there was greater transparency, he says.

-Stuff/Anuja Nadkarni.