Paying upfront at the bowser could be the answer to chipping up to three cents off every litre of fuel. 

There are on average around 75,000 cases of fuel theft each month in Australia, costing $78 million each year.

In Queensland alone, service stations lose around $9000 a year to drive-offs but that figure could be even higher as record fuel prices drive an increase in thefts.

The Australian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association CEO Mark McKenzie told Sofie Formica the cost of drive-offs is baked into what you pay at the bowser.

“Basically what happens is a business has to recover that cost and they recover it off all us law-abiding petrol consumers,” he said.

He suggested eliminating all fuel theft would allow service stations to drop their prices by up to 3.2 cents per litre.

Sofie Formica suggested adopting an American-style process of paying before pumps are enabled would minimise thefts.

Mr McKenzie said while pay-before-you-pump systems are proven to reduce reported thefts, the system would present some problems.

“The reason we have that as a bigger problem here in Australia than we do in the US is we’ve got more people per service station than they have in the US.

“As a result, our service stations tend to be busier in that peak period.

“That double-handling means you start to get … congestion, which from a business perspective, isn’t attractive.”

Press PLAY below to hear alternative solutions suggested by Mark McKenzie 

Image: Getty