Otago motorists can expect to pay less at the pump if independent fuel company Gull Petroleum comes to the South Island.
"We are an independent. We are not a multinational, and we are 1c-2c cheaper than our opposition," Gull New Zealand general manager Dave Bodger said.
The company was "looking at opportunities" in the South Island and in discussions with interested groups, he said.
With its head office in Perth, Gull operated 30 sites in the North Island, including at 22 Woolworths mini supermarkets.
The company had no sites in the lower North Island due to the distance from its terminal operation at the Port of Tauranga, which had a 78 million litre capacity.
The company would need to establish a terminal operation in the South Island before it could realistically open any stores, Mr Bodger said.
He would not say if he was in discussions with Port Otago but said he was "talking to lots of parties".
"We have to look at the cost to service each area, if we landed fuel in Bluff it would be uneconomical to truck to Nelson for example. We have to be somewhere central."
No final decision had been made, and it could be more than a year before the first Gull service station was operating in the South Island, he said.
