17 January 2009

Petrol prices soar

| johnboy
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The ABC is concerned about skyrocketing petrol prices in Canberra for no obvious reason.

    The NRMA says Canberra is the only capital city to have experienced a 20-cent per litre price rise at the petrol pump.

    Prices at the bowser in the capital jumped to around $1.15 per litre on Thursday.”

Petrol companies being arseholes is nothing new, but why pick on just us?

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I saw a clip on the news recently where a spokesperson from Shell tried to make the point that our prices are derived from the Singapore oil market, thus global fluctuations in the price of oil don’t necessarily change the bowser price in Australia.

To me, that seems like a crock of shit, as the price goes up dramatically whenever the global oil price rises. I hate oil companies.

Holden Caulfield2:31 pm 16 Feb 09

I’ve wondered the same thing too, but figured trying to work it out is akin to finding a solution that brings world peace.

Does anyone know what has happened to the weekly petrol price cycle here and why we’ve been consistently paying the mid to high $1.20s for last few weeks even though a barrel of oil and the Aussie dollar is still around the same as it was when we were paying $1.00 about a month ago? I would have thought there would have been a media backlash about it by now, or has everyone just given up and accepted that we are destined to be ripped off for living in Canberra?

Petrol 92cents in Erindale and has been considtently low for the last few weeks so I have been told. Whereas nearby stations in Mawson and even Philip are selling at the $1.15 mark. Any confirmation of this folks?

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy1:22 pm 21 Jan 09

I was in Dubbo the week before Christmas, and petrol was cheaper than in Canberra by a couple of cpl.

In August 2000 I brought my kids for a holiday here from Dunedoo (about an hour from Dubbo) and we were paying $1.14 for fuel back then.
As we entered ACT there were radio talks about fuel rises and I freaked thinking I wouldn’t have enough money to get home.
When we past a servo I noticed the price was almost 1/2 of what we have been paying and was thinking how lucky you all were.

I have no idea what the prices are like out that way now but would guess they would still almost be double.

There are some yearly graphs here that show that Canberra is generally the third most expensive capital city to by fuel (probably due to our location and population):

http://www.aaa.asn.au/issues/petrol.htm

There are some day to day petrol prices for other capital cities here:

http://motormouth.com.au/news/mediadata.aspx

All the data is out there to effectively show that the Australian fuels industry is quite competitive. Consumers would be more aware of this if the data was centralised.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy6:50 pm 19 Jan 09

Hey welkin31, any chance you could send the spreadsheet to the mods and have them post it up? I’d be interested for sure, and others probably will as well. Anything that adds fact or data to the discussion is great.

These prices are freely available they’re just a little tricky to find:

http://fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/news/dsp_fuelfacts.cfm

There has been a 12cent jump in the benchmark in the past 2 weeks.

Eq2, that aip website is interesting but try getting the Singapore Mogas95 price data.
A few years ago I was quoted ~$10,000 per year to buy the data thru Platts.
The Govt should make all these daily data freely available.

Daily data I have plotted VYBerlinaV8 does not support any 3 month lag. Just eyeballing my charts the lag is often circa 2 weeks, sometimes less. If you want my spreadsheet I can send it to you if you want.

F430 said :

what about those independent service station owners in Sydney who had their fuel for 1 hour 8am-9am for 49c, YEP 0.49c!!!! tell me the big boys cannot much this come on its all a big scam.

Match it for 1 hour? You should check out how much fuel excise is.

Petrol always goes up on Thursday. On Wednesday it hits its lowest point, and then on Thursday people get paid, so it goes up.

It was 112 and 108 down on the coast today.

Vic Bitterman7:24 pm 18 Jan 09

Just got back from Melbourne today. Took my 4wd which is dual fuel (petrol/LPG). LPG is going for around the 40c per litre mark, best I saw was 36.9cpl. Goddamn that’s great, considering it’s about 59cpl here!!!!

If only I could take a few “jerry cans” of LPG for the trip!!!!

Hmm,

I noticed this last week. I filled up my bike with Premium for $1.04/L then later in the day went to fill up the car and it was $1.15 for regular?

http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/snapshot.htm

The retail price of petrol continues to correlate with the singapore mogas benchmark.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy2:15 pm 18 Jan 09

Bear in mind that it takes about 3 months (or so I’m told) for crude oil bought at commodity prices to work its way through the transport, refinery and inventory system, so there’s not much point comparing pump prices with world oil prices on the same day.

Also, the value of the Australian dollar fluctuates, which alters the end price to us.

what about those independent service station owners in Sydney who had their fuel for 1 hour 8am-9am for 49c, YEP 0.49c!!!! tell me the big boys cannot much this come on its all a big scam.

welkin31, fair enough, I only drove past a few servos whilst I was there, and recording down the exact prices for a later arguement on a forum was not exactly high on my list of priorities.

The $1.15 prices you saw in Perth may not have been typical harvyk1, ya know there are always higher priced outlets around.
Being an ex Perth person I get daily WA Fuelwatch emails and here is the series for a week of prices at Caltex Woolworths Warnbro (near Rockingham 50kms S Perth). 12th, 105.9. 13th, 105.9. 14th, 105.9. 15th, 104.9. 16th, 102.9. 17th, 102.9. 18th, 102.5 Prices can not change in the course of a day.
The emails arrive late afternoon and give the next days prices for about 10 sites in and near your nominated suburb. A great service which saves motorists hundreds each year. How clever was the campaign to discredit the national rollout of Fuelwatch early in 08.
Here is a graph of Perth average ULP price for last 31 days. There was a circa 6c “cyclic” rise around 9-10-11 Jan.
http://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/graphs/dsp_price_trends.cfm
The daily world oil price fell from US$48.58 on 6th to $36.51 on 16th, so no sign there of any justification for the large price hike.
The NRMA’s Mr Evans is right I reckon, for some odd reason Canberra has been singled out for this large rise late last week. Since when did the oil-co’s not do exactly what they want. Govts come and go, their interests stay the same.
Australia could do with a National Fuels Corp to import ULP & diesel for resale to independent servos, so easy. Pump prices cut by 5-8c no worries. I can hear the screams now.

A Noisy Noise Annoys An Oyster9:59 am 18 Jan 09

Let’s hope the price comes back down as soon as Oz Day is over.

It was about $1.15 in Perth last Wednesday \ Thursday as well, and $1.15 in Melbourne on Friday. I should know, I drove past servos in both Perth and Melbourne on those days.

If people are that up in arms about fuel prices why not form a private equity company and buy an independent petrol station so then you, the owners, can set a decent price.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:11 pm 17 Jan 09

FFS, this has been done to death. Petrol companies discount petrol early in the week to get people into servos so they can make their profit (which is on chips, drinks and other overpriced crap sold by the servo shop). The prices return to level later in the week. Most of the time, servos themselves make 1-2 cents per litre, so your small suburban servo that sells 3000 litres on a good day only makes $30-60 on their petrol sold!

I used to work in a servo many years ago, but the cycle was the same. Two things never ceased to amaze me:
1) Thursday evening was busy as hell, every week, even though that was when prices were definitely up; and
2) Every second or third person who bought petrol also bought items in store. It wasn’t uncommon for those items to add up to $15 (or more if a packet of smokes was included).

FWIW, I paid 92.9cpl to fill the small car this week. I only juice the V8 every 3-4 weeks, and always on a Tuesday night.

the ABC are wankers then. Here in Melbourne, it went from 97.5cpl near me, to 117.5

Having just driven to tamworth I can say that the price is pretty consistently $1.15 at every petrol station between Canberra and tamworth.

Ok..Monday 19th, normal day.
Monday 26th, public holiday.

there, sorted! 🙂

A Tadpole Drinking5:42 pm 17 Jan 09

No, next Monday we will be going to work, however, on Monday week we will be having the Australia Day holiday.

Jivrashia said :

Is there a long weekend coming up!

No, but this Thursday was pay day. During AM price was 95c/l or less. By PM it had shot up to 115c/l. That’s hyper inflation at its best.

I don’t know what planet you guys are living on but there is a public holiday next Monday for Australia Day.

Is there a long weekend coming up!

No, but this Thursday was pay day. During AM price was 95c/l or less. By PM it had shot up to 115c/l. That’s hyper inflation at its best.

“There is absolutely no justification for a rise like that, in fact, crude oil is still going down and we should have seen price declines not price rises.”

Of course there is (justification). It’s capitalism at its best, or in the more common word “greed”. But I wish they’d stop pretending that it follows the Singaporean oil price. Just charge as much as you want. The Australian Government will probably make some noise in order to appear to be doing something, and the Australian people will grin, bleed, and bear it as usual.

Now, off to buy more shares in oil companies…

Still 94cents around these parts.

Is there a long weekend coming up!

Maybe with the return of public servants they can be a bit more opportunistic.

why can’t the ACCC do something about this?? collusion if they’re all doing it? anyone know what the prices are at queanbeyan?

Tell me about it, an extra $5 to fill up is just a joke, this too when oil prices are dropping!

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