$1.19L Petrol with $42 barrel Oil

[AWD Chaser]

http://www.maitlandmercury.com.au/ne...d/1414587.aspx

For Maitland motorists looking to skip town for the long weekend, major service station operators are ready.


The pre-Christmas period that saw unleaded petrol prices slump below a dollar were a distant memory for motorists on Wednesday as they faced prices upwards of 119 cents per litre.

The independent stations gave travellers a prolonged window of opportunity Wednesday afternoon, keeping prices below the $1.04 per litre.

The Mercury found the Metro service station at Cliftleigh offered the best opportunity for cheap fuel on Thursday with their e10 unleaded at 103.7 cents per litre, while the Caltex at Maitland and Green Hills, and the BP at Rutherford hit prices as high as 119.9 cents per litre.

Maitland Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jennifer Nichols said she was at a loss to imagine how the major providers could explain more than 10 cents per litre deficit from the independents.

“How do they justify a difference in excess of 10 cents,” she said.

“I’m sure the problem isn’t just with individual shop owners, it runs deeper than that.

“But when you drive up through Rutherford and see a big difference between the Shell and the Caltex, it makes you wonder.”

Ms Nichols said it was disappointing following the respite from high prices motorists experienced at the end of 2008.

“It is really disappointing. As soon as consumers start to see some sort of relief, it is snatched away from them,” she said.

“From a business point of view it is just one more thing businesses have to compete with. But Maitland is still doing pretty well in comparison to a lot of other places.” And Ms Nichols was quick to remind motorists this weekend that at least they were not paying the mid-2008 prices of around $1.50.

[dave289]

Once again we are going to talk and whinge about it but once again nothing will be done about it, the government are robbing us blind and dont cop direct flack because it looks like its all the fault of the servo's yet they are the ones doing nothing about this, but why would they ,if they did then they would rake in less tax from us,they might be dumb but there not so stupid on this matter.

the solution to the problem would be to steel a petrol tanker and keep it in your backyard

or maybe we should all chip in, buy our own servo and drop the price of fuel to force others to do the same.at least we would have cheaper petrol in the short term and not to long after that so would everybody else. :

[M&Ms]

Gotta love these long weekends... Petrol shoots up 20c/litre, and cops are out in force ready to take half your licence away, and then brag on Tuesday about how many motorists they caught at 10kays over... yes, i really do look forward to these long weekends :

[mrbaxr6t]

here one small local servo did the unthinkable, broke ranks and dropped fuel to 99.9 cpl clearly everybody went there as he was about 14cpl cheaper than anywhere else in town - Mobil responded with a record low fuel price of around 80 cpl! yea no kidding I posted a thread on it and all. Now said servo is having "supply issues" which got resolved once the pump price went back up to 1.10cpl ................ Yea they AREN'T profiteering are they..............

[redxm]

independent here 111.9. BP 100m up the road 122.9. definately not having a lend of us are they

[GT849]

Originally Posted by M&Ms

Gotta love these long weekends... Petrol shoots up 20c/litre, and cops are out in force ready to take half your licence away, and then brag on Tuesday about how many motorists they caught at 10kays over... yes, i really do look forward to these long weekends :

And still there are smash ups. I drove from Melbourne to Jerilderre and saw no coppers there and back all day. I saw one commo turn over on a long straight peice of road,

Back to topic, sorry.
I am all for cheaper but I don't care about the price, I just keep pouring the ultimate into it and keep going. Necessary evil. Petrol bowsers should do a boycot again maybe.
Governmant needs to raise money too to counter the tax cuts we gonna get to keep the country going. Quite elementry really...give it to you in one hand and rip it out from your other.

[XR06T]

on saturday a local independant was 1.08 for 98, breezed passed as i wasn't too low. put some in on sunday @ bp for 1.33. i was fuming!!!

[malazn mafia]

Originally Posted by GT849

And still there are smash ups. I drove from Melbourne to Jerilderre and saw no coppers there and back all day. I saw one commo turn over on a long straight peice of road,

Back to topic, sorry.
I am all for cheaper but I don't care about the price, I just keep pouring the ultimate into it and keep going. Necessary evil. Petrol bowsers should do a boycot again maybe.
Governmant needs to raise money too to counter the tax cuts we gonna get to keep the country going. Quite elementry really...give it to you in one hand and rip it out from your other.

Also wondering where all the highway patrol went this long weekend. Just made a trip to SA and back, and not a single copper along the way. :. Maybe they were more concerned setting up booze buses in the major cities this long weekend, and fighting *real crime* (drink/drug driving) Not complaining : .

[89.SVO]

i filled up the gf's Celica Thursday at 10am and 91 octane was 108.9 and 98 octane was 121.9. then at 1pm that day my mate filled his VP and 91 was 118.9 and 98 was 131.9. went up ten cents in 3 hours!

[vztrt]

Got some 95E10 for 95c, prob will fill up for 1.05 when I fill up on Wednesday.

[winkle]

Read this in Melbourne's Herald Sun today:

Terry McCrann

January 28, 2009 12:00am
A READER asks why the price of petrol is $1.20 when crude oil is at a record low of $US38 a barrel.

Well, setting aside the fact that $US38 is not exactly a 'record low' - oil was below $US20 just a few years ago; it used to be $US2 before OPEC; and for much of the 20th century it was in cents a barrel - here's the answer.

Actually two answers. The short answer is that no business is normally in the business of paying customers to take their product. That's a pretty sure fire way of not being in business.

The reader said petrol should be at 75 a litre. That would require the oil company to sell it at anything up to 30-40 less for every litre than it cost to get it to the pump.

And so to the longer answer. There are 159 litres of oil in a barrel. Strictly speaking, this gives you only 'about' 80 litres of petrol.

The rest will be jet fuel, heating oil and a whole range of chemicals. The exact mix depends on the type of oil - from sweet light to very heavy - and the fractionation processing that turns oil into all those products.

But it all does produce revenue and so for the purposes of calculation we'll assume it does all turn into petrol.

So, first you have to translate the $US38 into $A54 a barrel; and that gives you a base cost of 34 a litre (54 divided by 159). So why isn't petrol a lot cheaper?

Enter Kevin Rudd, John Howard, Peter Costello, and a long line of prime ministers and treasurers before them. A three-letter word: tax. Two actually. The excise and the GST.

The excise is fixed at 38 a litre. At least we can thank Mr Howard for that. Before he fixed it, in a moment of sheer political panic in 2001, it went up every six months in line with inflation.

The GST is of course 10 per cent on what ever is the final price at the pump, before you add the GST.

Just taking the 38 excise and adding it to the 34 base oil price would generate a 7.2 GST and so a pump price of 79 a litre.

That is already above the 75 our reader said the price 'should' be. And that would assume the oil moved magically and instantly from the well in the Middle East and elsewhere to being petrol at all the pumps around Australia.

Just like cash appears in ATMs at no cost and no process. But that is another, equally depressing story.

In reality there is the little matter of first the transportation of the oil to the refinery; the investment in the refinery to process it; the cost of doing the processing; the transportation to the station; and then the selling of the petrol.

That all costs several cents a litre. We can be thankful for the efficiency of our oil industry that it doesn't cost a lot more.

Now our reader and depressingly far too many others believe that all this should be done out of the goodness of all those industry hearts. But everyone in the chain actually is entitled, indeed needs, to earn a - I hesitate to utter a dirty word - 'profit'.

So at the very minimum we are talking 15 a litre to cover all the costs and very low profits - both to the oil refiners and the petrol stations.

Which boosts that base price from 72 a litre to 87. Plus GST of 9 making 96. Much more than the 'should be' 75, but lower than the claimed $1.20.

A smaller rip-off but still a rip-off?

Now to our reader's basic figures. A more reasonable oil price is $US45 a barrel, not $US38.

And although petrol at some places might have been $1.20, the confirmed evidence is that in recent weeks the average has not been above $1.10.

The $US45 a barrel figure gives you a real 'should be' price at the pump of something higher than $1.07 a litre.

That's 44 base plus 38 excise plus 15 costs and profit plus 10 GST. If anything, higher than the actual price paid by the motorist.

As anyone who knows the realities of petrol pricing will tell you, on average you get it cheaper than any reasonable calculation of 'should be'.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...-36281,00.html

[JPFS1]

Most sensible and accurate article i've read on petrol pricing.

So many think it should be so much cheaper when in reality they know nothing of the costs involved.

Interestingly, at today's relatively low price per barrel of oil, the amount of TAX we pay is greater than the cost of the crude product itself per Ltr.

Originally Posted by winkle

Read this in Melbourne's Herald Sun today:

Terry McCrann

January 28, 2009 12:00am
A READER asks why the price of petrol is $1.20 when crude oil is at a record low of $US38 a barrel.

Well, setting aside the fact that $US38 is not exactly a 'record low' - oil was below $US20 just a few years ago; it used to be $US2 before OPEC; and for much of the 20th century it was in cents a barrel - here's the answer.

Actually two answers. The short answer is that no business is normally in the business of paying customers to take their product. That's a pretty sure fire way of not being in business.

The reader said petrol should be at 75 a litre. That would require the oil company to sell it at anything up to 30-40 less for every litre than it cost to get it to the pump.

And so to the longer answer. There are 159 litres of oil in a barrel. Strictly speaking, this gives you only 'about' 80 litres of petrol.

The rest will be jet fuel, heating oil and a whole range of chemicals. The exact mix depends on the type of oil - from sweet light to very heavy - and the fractionation processing that turns oil into all those products.

But it all does produce revenue and so for the purposes of calculation we'll assume it does all turn into petrol.

So, first you have to translate the $US38 into $A54 a barrel; and that gives you a base cost of 34 a litre (54 divided by 159). So why isn't petrol a lot cheaper?

Enter Kevin Rudd, John Howard, Peter Costello, and a long line of prime ministers and treasurers before them. A three-letter word: tax. Two actually. The excise and the GST.

The excise is fixed at 38 a litre. At least we can thank Mr Howard for that. Before he fixed it, in a moment of sheer political panic in 2001, it went up every six months in line with inflation.

The GST is of course 10 per cent on what ever is the final price at the pump, before you add the GST.

Just taking the 38 excise and adding it to the 34 base oil price would generate a 7.2 GST and so a pump price of 79 a litre.

That is already above the 75 our reader said the price 'should' be. And that would assume the oil moved magically and instantly from the well in the Middle East and elsewhere to being petrol at all the pumps around Australia.

Just like cash appears in ATMs at no cost and no process. But that is another, equally depressing story.

In reality there is the little matter of first the transportation of the oil to the refinery; the investment in the refinery to process it; the cost of doing the processing; the transportation to the station; and then the selling of the petrol.

That all costs several cents a litre. We can be thankful for the efficiency of our oil industry that it doesn't cost a lot more.

Now our reader and depressingly far too many others believe that all this should be done out of the goodness of all those industry hearts. But everyone in the chain actually is entitled, indeed needs, to earn a - I hesitate to utter a dirty word - 'profit'.

So at the very minimum we are talking 15 a litre to cover all the costs and very low profits - both to the oil refiners and the petrol stations.

Which boosts that base price from 72 a litre to 87. Plus GST of 9 making 96. Much more than the 'should be' 75, but lower than the claimed $1.20.

A smaller rip-off but still a rip-off?

Now to our reader's basic figures. A more reasonable oil price is $US45 a barrel, not $US38.

And although petrol at some places might have been $1.20, the confirmed evidence is that in recent weeks the average has not been above $1.10.

The $US45 a barrel figure gives you a real 'should be' price at the pump of something higher than $1.07 a litre.

That's 44 base plus 38 excise plus 15 costs and profit plus 10 GST. If anything, higher than the actual price paid by the motorist.

As anyone who knows the realities of petrol pricing will tell you, on average you get it cheaper than any reasonable calculation of 'should be'.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...-36281,00.html

[olfella]

Following on from the MHS article that always amazes me is why do we have four separate tanks in the ground? one for 98, one for 95 one for 91 and one for E10. Why cant we just have one fuel?

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by olfella

Following on from the MHS article that always amazes me is why do we have four separate tanks in the ground? one for 98, one for 95 one for 91 and one for E10. Why cant we just have one fuel?

Excellent thought, why couldn't it have been legislated when we switched to unleaded that it was going to be 98ron...maybe because the oil companies argued that it would cause a big jump in price from old super and hence the various ron levels which in turn helps marketing and the different pricing level justifications.

I also think it's time we benchmark our local wholesale petrol prices to a world average rather than Singapore's Nomgas price which would hopefully reduce the spikes when such things as "tornados in the gulf, plant breakdows, mid-east unrest, increased chinese demand, ingrown toe-nail for the security guard on the terminal gate, etc"......

[GK]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

Reality is that oil companies can charge whatever they want, rip off or not as the world is very much dependent on it :

Agreed. Was talking to a mate whose mate works for Exxon. He was telling my mate not to belive the rhetoric about oil and fuel prices ect, as they set the price at whatever they want! The quote was something like "If we want it at $60 a barrel, it's $60 a barrel, if we want $70 a barrel........"

Interesting in any case.

GK

[vztrt]

Petrol went up to 1.28/l in Melbourne. I was lucky to pick up some E10 for 95.7c/l tonight.

[Daymoe]

I saw diesel at 1.19cpl at Bulla BP today, that was weird because it was only 7 or so cents more expensive than petrol.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by Daymoe

I saw diesel at 1.19cpl at Bulla BP today, that was weird because it was only 7 or so cents more expensive than petrol.

Its $1.19c/l litre here as well, so now its cheaper then petrol. Funny if Australia didn't have the extra 17.5c/l excise on it diesel would be on the $1/l mark.

[DashXR6T]

What A Joke!!!
Going up by about 10c a week by the looks of it :|