KEY POINTS:
Mother's Day came early for New Zealand motorists today when another petrol price war broke out.
The overall effect when the flow of oil company media releases dried up, was that pump prices of petrol and diesel will be 7c a litre less at the weekend.
Mother's Day is on Sunday.
Gull started the war by offering 5c off a litre of petrol until 7pm today.
Shell and Caltex quickly followed by reducing the price of petrol by 6c a litre.
Then BP topped the lot by offering 6c a litre discount for the entire weekend.
Not to be beaten, Gull came back and extended its Mother's Day savings to 7c a litre until 7am on Monday, May 14.
"We want to show our ongoing commitment to our loyal customers who have asked us to maintain delivery of better choice and competitive savings that they just don't get elsewhere," said Gull New Zealand general manager Dave Bodger.
Since then the other major oil companies have also dropped their petrol and diesel prices by 7c a litre.
BP managing director Peter Griffiths said that the savings for customers using supermarket discount fuel dockets would be at least 11c a litre.
Caltex spokeswoman Sharon Buckland said her company would be following the market.
"We have to," she said. "It's a competitive environment."
Shell spokeswoman Jackie Maitland said Shell would be maintaining the 7c a litre cut until at least Sunday night.
The weekend prices mean that 91 octane petrol drops to 148.9c a litre, with 95 octane at 153.9c a litre. Diesel falls to 94.9c a litre.
- NZPA
