Fuel Price Increases 30.09.2022

Hi,
We have been advised by the treasurer that he is not expecting any price gouging or sudden price increases occuring, now the fuel excise has been returned to its old level. Well he should take a look at the SEQ area, specifically Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I was expecting fuel to increase from where is was earlier this week for Pulp which was around $1.70 to $1.92c . This is not the case as Pulp price has increased by 40c to an average of $2.09 this morning. What is happening is a disgrace and the retailers/ fuel companies should be hanging their heads in shame. We should be jumping up and down from the highest height, to complain to our elected representatives about this highway robbery. Regards. Kevin

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It’s a common concern.
Moves to penalise consumers were delivered in advance by the retailers. Not one peep from the ACCC or the responsible government minister. Something every Queenslander will be well aware of.

Not sure how it is playing out down south where most of Australia lives?

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The locals have yet to raise their prices at all in Eltham Vic. Still $1.845cpl for 91 at 11:30.

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Hi, I suggest you have a look at some fuel price apps , like Fuel Watch or the Victorian equivalent to see if things have changed today. I have posted a screen shot ,to show what is going on in SEQ


I know there is nothing we can do to change this, however I have also sent my concerns to Federal Treasury. I will post if I get any reply. Cheers. Kevin

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It still pays to shop around. There were only 5 cars (one per pump) ahead of us in the queue for the 6 pump positions. Hopefully when we need to fill up in 2 weeks time the current pricing circus will have regained some sensibility.

For comparison with last weeks prices in my previous linked post.

Observations include most of those which were around 190cpl today were at the same price point same time last week. Absolutely no evidence of any gouging this week, as if consumers have not noticed.

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A single semi-trailer sized fuel tanker holds 30,800 litres of fuel (~600 cars @50ish litres ea). In some service stations, the proprietor pays for the fuel as it goes into the on-site tanks. Those stations pay excise tax as they buy their fuel, and should only adjust their prices as they receive new loads, and then more less proportionally to the average in their tanks.

Other stations are owned by the fuel company. The franchisee pays for the fuel sold through the bowser, and the fuel company owns the fuel in the tanks. They tend to keep these full. They also should pay excise on fuel as it’s shipped (ex-refinery) as far as I know, but I’m not dead sure on that. That would called something like “ex-terminal”.

The point is that you should see busy (i.e. the cheapest price) service stations changing their prices once they’ve had ~half their tanks sold and replenished. The other less aggressively priced stations will follow, since they don’t tend to sell their fuel as quickly.

There’s not a lot of margin on fuel, so you can bet London to a brick they’ll adjust to profit the most without drawing too much attention to themselves.

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Or the servo should only have increased the price once the volume held in their tanks as of midnight on 28th Sept had been dispensed!

To be brutally honest the ACCC could have required every servo to close for 30 minutes at midnight on 28th Sept. Having dipped their tanks they might have been asked to display publicly at the servo entry the volume of lower excuse fuel held. Although?

Did competition ensure there was no gouging?
The BS meter has it’s needle jammed well past the overload indicator panel. Alternately the Federal Treasurer needs a new calculator?

Federal treasurer Jim Chalmers has cited industry estimates of about 700 million litres of discounted fuel still being “in the system”. To put that in perspective, Australians consumed an average of about 42.5 million litres of petrol a day in 2021. So it may be one to two weeks, depending on where you live, before you’re paying extra.
What now for petrol prices? Global doom and gloom makes the outlook surprisingly positive

As previously indicated there were many servos down the road which had increased their retail pricing to the 190cpl mark well in advance of the increase. There’s no local evidence of fuel prices being averaged over time. Those which were not increased prior to the morning of the 29th went up rather promptly.

There are always exceptions. Morning of 02 Oct. There is nearly always a queue suggesting at this price the tanks must be more than adequate.

Typically referred to as the Terminal Gate price. Also my understanding to as to where fuel is metered for the statutory reporting for tax purposes. Also the easiest to monitor and ensure accurate calibration of measurements.
Terminal Gate Prices | Australian Institute of Petroleum

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The only response is there has been nothing to see about our price cycles that do not track crude or refining data that are common in the cities but not the regions - all very innocent - and

The ACCC often resembles an origami paper dragon than a governmental oversight agency.

image

The could do many things. Maybe, if properly scoped and funded to do so.

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Ours is not to reason why, ……

From the “horses head”, or … the Australian Institute of Petroleum.

WHOLESALE Terminal Gate this week ULP.

RETAIL QLD, this week (sample from start of table).
Follow the link at the end for more locations and the data for every State and nearby Territories.

Pump Prices | Australian Institute of Petroleum

I’ll leave it to others to speculate as to why it is so and whether as consumers many of us have just been duded by the fuel industry.

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This article looking at statewide averages reveals in most states fuel price rises have been modest/slight since the reintroduction of full fuel excise…

South Australia is the only state with a substantial increase. This increase is still less than the amount of excise added to fuel on the 30 September.

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The argument will be that their tanks were half full (or whatever) of fuel they had paid the full excise on when the cut came into effect, and they’re only doing the same on the way out.
Dipping the tanks at the beginning and end of the period and displaying the results won’t help. If they’re unscrupulous, they’ll splash claim whatever suits them. We started with full tanks…

They would have phased in the price reduction, and they’ll phase it out the same way, but some will make a minor adjustment. The market usually sorts it out. If you try to sell marked up fuel, the servo down the road will get the car traffic. These fuel price apps like petrolspy are wonderful things.

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… at least with a high flow pump it’s fun watching the numbers tick over :rofl:

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The international situation (obviously) cannot be managed like excise. It looks like OPEC is going to make hay while the sun shines and jack up their prices while supply from Russia has the market in turmoil. This could go on for a long time and end up costing us a lot.

Given the pitiful reserves we hold of imported oil and products and the fact that we have to subsidise our remaining oil refineries to keep them competitive this development adds more risk to our fuel security as well as the cost.

The sooner we get off using ICE for most vehicles the less we will be held to ransom. If Europe had weened itself off Russian gas 5 years ago would Putin have gone to war? I don’t want to side track into the Ukraine situation but to point out how powerful fossil fuel bottlenecks are in our society. Would the instability in the middle east have persisted so long and been so nasty if some players didn’t hold the big stick of fuel supply?

OTOH there may be some countries dependent on coal that would like to stop importing from us. Bring it on.

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Filled up my Hilux diesel $165 for 500kms
Charged my wife’s EV $20 for equiv no of kms
If I had home PVs it would have been like $6/500kms

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