for all those that "BELIEVE" in this toothless tiger, give yourself an upper cut and make it hurt.
ACCC happy with petrol prices again
January 24, 2007 - 12:29PM
The consumer watchdog has backed away from its stoush with oil companies, saying it is satisfied petrol prices have fallen back to competitive levels.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) last week threatened to publicly shame the companies after finding Australian petrol prices were an average seven cents a litre above their overseas benchmark.
ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel stopped short of alleging anti-competitive behaviour but said prices were between five and 10 cents a litre higher than current unleaded prices in Singapore.
The Singapore bowser price is based on the price of Tapis crude oil - the benchmark for Australia - which has fallen steadily in recent months.
Mr Samuel said he was satisfied with the response of the oil companies.
"Over the past week there has been a significant fall in petrol prices so that they now reflect more closely the Singapore international benchmark," he said.
"We expect that average petrol prices will continue to move in line with this benchmark."
Mr Samuel said evidence showed that consumers in the five major metropolitan markets -
Sydney,
Melbourne,
Brisbane,
Perth and
Adelaide - continued to take advantage of the petrol price cycle. Prices generally peak on Thursdays and trough on Tuesdays.
"Data on petrol sales volumes shows that on average across a price cycle, around 60 per cent of petrol is sold at prices below the average of the price cycle, which suggests consumers are taking advantage of the cycle," Mr Samuel said.
Price differences between the city and the bush remained a concern, with significantly lower competition in regional areas still a major factor, he said.
Meanwhile, the ACCC issued its first quarterly price monitoring report on ethanol blended petrol, finding it was selling for almost three cents a litre below the price of unleaded.
The federal government ordered the commission to begin monitoring the price of unleaded with a 10 per cent blend of ethanol (E10) last year.
There were concerns retailers had failed to drop the price of the alternative fuel, which is more expensive to produce but is subsidised by the government by 38 cents a litre.
The ACCC's monitoring of 14 service stations selling E10 found prices were competitive at an average 2.9 cents per litre below the cost of regular unleaded.
Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Mark Vaile, who has pushed hard for a bigger uptake of E10, welcomed the ACCC's report.
"Monitoring the price of E10 will continue to be a powerful incentive for fuel companies to compete and offer their customers better value," he said.
"It will increase the use of E10 as a cheap, green alternative to regular unleaded petrol."
The number of service stations selling E10 had grown from 270 last June to around 475, Mr Vaile said.