THE cost of cooking with gas has soared as global energy prices continue to rise.

Residential Cairns customers are now paying up to $3.58 a kg for LPG cylinders delivered to their homes by Origin Energy.

Since July, the cost of a 13.5kg cylinder for Green LPG customers in Cairns has risen 12.8 per cent from $42.90 to $48.40.

Regular customers opting not to receive a carbon credit pay $1 less for each 13.5kg cylinder. They have been slugged with the same price rise, bringing the cost to more than $47 a cylinder.

In September, Origin raised its LPG prices in Cairns by 2 per cent.

Two further rises in December and January added another 10.5 per cent to the cost of gas.

An Origin Energy spokeswoman said the company was passing on the price increases dictated by global LPG prices.

If world prices started falling, she said customers would then benefit from a price drop.

LPG Australia chief executive officer Steve Woodward said global LPG prices had bee rising by an average of $100 a tonne every year since 2004 and the trend was likely to continue.

Since July, the wholesale price of propane has climbed nearly 46 per cent from $684 a tonne to $997 a tonne in January.

"We are experiencing a commodities boom and Australia is generally the beneficiary of that," Mr Woodward said.

"The boom is being driven by China and India … The downside of that is we have to pay more for energy."

Northern hemisphere customers stocking up on LPG for winter had also contributed to a spike in demand for LPG late last year.

Mr Woodward attributed the significant price discrepancy between LPG at the fuel bowser and gas supplied to homes to the extra handling and transport costs involved in supplying smaller cylinders.

The biggest additional cost was unloading and storing the gas which added to the wholesale cost of about 50c a litre for a 44,000 litre tank.