Fuel prices Here and there AU and NZ

Hate to tell you but your soft drink analogy is way out of wack , can of the biggest selling soft drink in the world , 375ml curently costs 43cents give or take 2-3 cents so litre cost is roughly the same unleaded / diesel per litre.

Hi Alloy c/t
I must have been sniffing too much petrol, because I don't follow you.
I can buy a litre of petrol for $1.40 +/-, but a in the same servo, a can of soft drink will cost me $2.25 or a 2 litre bottle for $5.50. These equate to $3.50 to $4.00 per litre.
Does your local sell cans of soft drink for 43 cents, or are you talking about the cost to manufacture being 43 cents compared to price of fuel as a cost to the servo?

Sniffing it ? Only people who do sniff [ petrol ] seem to buy it 1lt at a time ,, Go to any , nah that would be wrong , go to most supermarkets be it IGA -Woolies or Coles and buy soft drink and a 24pack of the biggest seller is round the $12 mark or less when on special ,,,, 24x 375ml = 9lt divide by $12 = $1.33 per lt , cheaper than petrol / diesel ,and truth be known thats after markup of 50/100%.

woolies - 15 cans for $17

Stephen,

$1.429 is 10 cents CHEAPER than diesel here in Mandurah (WA).

Can you deal with having another Stephen in Clare? I'm moving.....

G'day Stephen,

The Riverland is still 155.9 for Diesel this morning. It appears to me that the fuel prices increase whenever the primary producers are about to crank up the tractors for either seeding or harvesting. Unfortunately for us, when the grain harvest ends, vintage starts up so there is no respite.
Unleaded was 149.9cpl this morning as well.
Hope the prices start to drop here soon.

I have that CD copied now to. I'll give you a ring as I have mis-laid your address.


Cheers
Des

Thats 30 cents a litre less than Muttaburra and 20 cents a litre less than Longreach.

Hi Guy's

When I got home for lunch and saw the replies, I thought that Clare would be getting a hammering for dear diesel, so it looks like we are better off here that we think.

to Des...
Diesel must have gone up since Easter, as when we topped up in Renmark, it was at the same price then as Clare, $1.539. I did not get fuel for a few weeks and when it had dropped to $1.499, I topped up. And then in just over a week later, it dropped again down to the current price of $1.429 per litre, so I filled up this time. The price in Clare of diesel does no change when seeding/vintage/harvesting commences. Most cockies are now flat out with seeding and the price has not changed.

Address Des is 50 Gleeson Street.

Distance wise we are far enough away from the big smoke (136 kilometres north od Adelaide) yet fuel prices are not over prices a great deal. We find that Port Augusta is usually around 2 cents a litre dealer than Clare and the moment that you head north of the Port, prices rise very quickly, with most times 30 cents a litre dearer at Pimba, which we never buy there for that very reason.

Cheers to all.

Stephen

And that may well be the case, but what would you prefer. Price adjustments as they occur on a daily basis, whether it is brought about by wholesale price changes, or retail price tenions, or when it suits the fuel supplier/retailer to drop prices, which in New Zealand may be on a weekly or longer basis?


And not trying to be argumentative, but you need to be comparing like with like, and your original post does not do that nor acknowledge there is a fundamental difference in the way diesel is priced between Australia and New Zealand. But even putting that aside if you look at the statistics Australians pay less for fuel, than our cousins across the Tasman...

I said this many times before on this forum, but I'll pose the question again, if fuel retailing and refining is that good a business why are we closing refineries in Australia, rather than opening them. The latest to close is Clyde in Sydney.

It is a low margin business which is marginal at best...

Cheers, The Landy

At least over there with weekly or less "adjustments" you dont get

conincidental adjustments "UP" immediatley prior to holiday weekends like you

do here.

That of course has nothing to do with the hoilday. Its just the normal cycle of things

ROFL

I paid $1.62 for 95 the other day and that was at a 7/11.

Hi Snoopy...

So if I'm reading your logic correct, what you are saying is you'd prefer to pay 'full' price each and every day, similar to New Zealand, and forgo the marketing discounts that we get in Australia on a daily basis, to avoid 'coincidental' adjustments prior to holiday weekends... You must be one of those rich buggers....

I’m joining you in ROFL, and will move on!

Cheers, The Landy

Landy , you always seem to defend the fuel suppliers why is that ? Thing is that Australia made a huge mistake years ago by going price parity to Singapore , closing down our refineries ?? Yep ,we have lost the plot , as a country we have enough oil and gas reserves for our OWN needs to last well into the 23rd century , but no , we are doomed to sell off all our assets as fast as we can to the rest of the world and reap short term finacial gain for a very very smal percentage of our fellow Australians.

Personally I think the real price is the low and they jack it up to suit them

Not the other way around

Whatever was just wondering why NZ has had several price decreases and we havent had anything noticeable at all.

Also if we started on the Us pricesWell................................

Cheers

Hi Alloy

I’m not defending the fuel companies at all, I’m defending the facts, and that is entirely different.

Inevitably fuel threads usually start along the lines of ‘we are getting ripped off’ but with little regard for the facts. This thread started off with a completely incorrect premise, and was factually incorrect, something all too common... Not much point all running around slamming an industry we are dependent on, unless we are armed with all the (correct) facts!

And don’t get me wrong, there are concerns raised at times that have validity, but our retail fuel prices are continually subjected to a high level of scrutiny and inevitably there is no avoiding the reality that in time, with a dwindling global resource and a high level of demand, prices can only go one way...

On Import Parity Pricing (IPP); Australia needs to import about one-fifth of its refined petroleum product to supplement local refinery capacity and to ensure continuity of supply. That decision was taken a long-time ago and I doubt you will find any ‘informed’ debate that suggests it was the wrong decision. It is one thing to have the oil in the ground, it is another to have the capacity to refine it into a product you can use to power your vehicle.

As for selling off all our assets, well that is another topic altogether... but as a starting point if we didn’t continually ‘rack’ up such a whopping foreign debt, much of it financing our housing, along with consumer debt (pay for all those imported 4WD) then maybe we wouldn’t need to...

I am actually well read on the topic, and I make it my business to have a good grasp of the issues... But I still have to pull up at a servo to fill-up ‘The Landy’ and hand over my hard-earned cash every other week, so rest assured, I know just like everyone else the impost escalating fuel costs has on all of us...

Cheers, The Landy

Landy has put up a very informative reply-and that always seems to rub some people up the wrong way!
No one wants facts-they want hearsay and urban myths!

Another point to the oft spruiked "Australia has plenty of oil/gas for itself" line, is that on the volumes used in Oz, especially gas is not economical to extract.
I believe that of the gas from the NW Shelf, less than 10% is used domestically. Projects like Pluto, Browse and Gorgon etc are drilling in water up to 1000 meters deep-can you see your government stumping up $500K a day to drill for gas, build a pipeline ashore, process and then give it to you for nothing?

Some people give the impression they believe that a hole is drilled next to the road, a bowser and service station is built on top and the fuel is sucked straight up for your car.

Without a doubt fuel companies shaft us-but the ones who get most shafted are those who "cant be bothered" watching for a few cents difference or filling on a tuesday instead of friday-and sorry-but they deserve it.

Here in WA Fuelwatch seems very successful, on the Eastcoast I believe it failed (correct me if Im wrong?). If nothing else I can look at the website after 4pm and see that its going up or down a few cents tomorrow and fuel up accordingly.

Hi Fisho

I’m not one to take it personally, but I put together some further thoughts on the matter... and there is plenty informative and publically available information regarding the industry, the players, pricing, and importantly fuel security.

And it is important to readily identify the ‘players’ and the role they play in the fuel chain cycle. For example, all too frequently in Australia, Caltex is referred to as an ‘oil’ company. It isn’t, Caltex is a refiner, purchasing crude oil on the world market and converting it into petroleum products. They do not explore or produce oil at all. Some of the oil companies have integrated oil exploration and refining business’s, but these are run very independently of each other.

A frequently asked question is why are we linked to the Singapore Prices via the Import Price Parity (IPP) arrangement, especially given our abundance of both oil and gas. On face value it may seem a reasonable proposition, but the further you delve into the issues surrounding this notion you quickly realise it is far more complex.

The refineries in Australia are very old when compared to the new, high capacity refineries being built in Asia.

Security of supply is very important to the whole discussion, could you imagine a situation where Australia was reliant entirely on imported petroleum products? It is a National Security issue, let’s face it our armed forces are reliant on it first and foremost to do their job, industry needs it to be able to function, and eventually it works its way down the chain. But imagine being told that limited fuel was available for private consumption as it is directed towards more important users.

Being entirely reliant on imported petroleum product exposes Australia to risks that are not acceptable. Whilst we have relatively peaceful northern neighbours, who is to say that will always be the case and that Australia will never be threatened by another country? Imagine that all that you would need to do is to stop petroleum products reaching our shores to inhibit our ability to defend ourselves. And whilst it might sound conspiratory, Federal Governments in Australia, regardless of persuasion will be very cognisant of these issues. The cry that successive governments play to the tune of the refiners may well be true, but with good reason...

So having refining capacity available in Australia is critical to ensure that we can guarantee supply in times of need. And this is how IPP plays a role. Presently the arrangement is working in favour of the domestic refiners to the extent that it costs more to ship the refined product to Australia than it does to refine it here. And that is the incentive for refiners to continue their Australian operations, because let’s face it, if you could import the finished product for less than you could refine it here, why would you do it? The IPP guarantees the price they can sell fuel at is reflective of the cost to import similar.

It is also important to note that Governments haven’t closed refineries in Australia, companies have made a commercial decision to do so. Mobil closed Port Stanvac because it was uneconomical to continue and Shell recently announced it was closing the Clyde refinery in Sydney for the same reason. So there is a history already that points towards these companies leaving when it no longer suits.

But increasingly, the mega-refineries in South-East Asia, many whose refining capacity far outstrips the total capacity in Australia, will put downward pressure on refining margins. If Australian refineries become unprofitable we run the risk they will close. And the capital cost of a new refinery being built in Australia to take advantage of efficiency gains ensures it won’t happen.

In the future I envisage the Government of the day will need to provide incentives by way of subsidies or tax concessions for refineries to remain viable and open for business, and we all know who that will cost – the Australian tax payer, but that is the cost of ensuring continuity of supply, and the ability to fuel your vehicle, when you want to.

Cheers, The Landy

" Imagine that all that you would need to do is to stop petroleum products reaching our shores to inhibit our ability to defend ourselves"

precisely what the US did to Japan and forced them to show their hand at Pearl Harbour.
Unfortunately the yanks seemed to be looking at the wrong hand!

For some reason the US didnt seem to realize what the Japs would do but I believe that Japan only had 9 months oil supply and hence had to invade SE Asia.

In Sydney today you will pay a price range from AU$1.339 to AU$1.499 with an average price of AU$1.389.

Translated into NZ$ a price range of NZ$1.76 to NZ$1.96 with an average of NZ$1.82.


Cheers, The Landy

Landy. Are you referring to Diesel or Petrol?

Also I should have mentioned that in NZ we are paying an extra 5c/ltr for carbon tax via our ETS. That’s the scheme that’s coming to a service station near you, very soon.

It will save the world you know.
HA ha.

Cheers. Clive.

Just so that we are comparing like with like, diesel in Oz inclides an 18c/l road tax for heavy vehicles, which we all pay whether we drive a heavy vehicle or not.
Cheers
Andrew

Hi Clive

It was for ULP, but mind you prices will vary substantially across the country.

And on the carbon tax, the fuel companies will be the largest emitters, so someone will be paying for it...at the bowser I guess.

Good weekend to you, The Landy

your right swaggie-that 4-6 cents when it started was 4-6%, the higher prices go the lesser % it is and it wont matter cos Gull and the like will be GONE

Unsustainable as only 2c a litre profit , whose profit margin ? If its oil companies multiply that 2c by the millions of ltrs and you have millions of $ profit.