Victorian Fuel pricing trends Versus Queensland or other states.

I've been lucky still getting 116.9 Diesel. but..................

jaahn said:
Hi,
It appears that the price of fuel has jumped very recently here in Newcastle. I went to get some 95 and was astonished to see prices of 160+ . However on Fuel watch the best price today is 148 near me. That is at independents.
Shell service stations here seem intent on driving customers away with their prices. 160 on fuel watch. However the Coles ones can offer up to 20c a liter off with silly offers. So they rip off other customers 20c.:(
Jaahn
Click to expand...

Sad that Jaahn. Shell has settled down a bit with the Diesel price, but it is still high in Melbourne with 127.9 the average, but then we seem to be re-routing our trips so that we get our 116.9 Diesel Price and as we drove back to Melbourne along Bell Street, there was one lone BP Station near Merri Creek that doesn't want to sell fuel to anyone but brain dead motorists who last Monday were 147.9 a Litre for Diesel, :eek: now that is a dead set rip off as even the Heidleberg West BP was in the 127.9 range, but our full tank meant no need to purchase Diesel for a week or so and I get to visit my older brother in Bendigo as well! :D

How about those that have converted to LPG or have modern LPG fuelled vehicles? Gas prices in Melbourne that used to be in the 50's range of prices are now 69c a litre on average and I saw one at 75 cents a litre :eek: How is that for you Interstate guys? NO excuse for those extremes in prices IMHO!

Need a new Motorists advocate in the Federal Parliament. Hope Fuel prices get some coverage in the upcoming Queensland Election - has the Election announcement done anything to lower prices there?

Need to keep up the pressure on the pollies I think.

Keep your observations coming in on those local pricing changes. There was an article suggesting that NSW had better fuel pricing legislation but my casual observation of just over the border pricing doesn't seem to indicate much effect, In Echuca Moama prices lately seem uncompetitive - same basic pricing structure either side of the border and United doesn't seem to be keeping prices down like they used too. Sad really for country motorists.

Ken
 
Appy hunting, well done IF you are beating the price hike scam.

N5GTi6 said:
I use MotorMouth to fill up on the low cycle. I also have the App on my phone. Very handy.

https://motormouth.com.au/

Cheers

Justin
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Good for you Justin,:headbang: However as has been pointed out many times, the so called "discount cycle" is NOT in any shape or form a real indication of competition :evil:, it is an oil industry controlled cycle that is manipulated by the oil industry to give high upswings in retail pricing and gradual returns to a base price, it may in rare cases dip below the gate sale price controlled by the wholesaling practices of the refining and marketing Industry. But still represents a better than average, that is, normal retail price at consumer level, it gives the appearance of true competition but relies on enough consumers that are caught out and have to fill with fuel at the higher than average level artificially created in the sharp price upswings.

My analogy is like the rim of a spinning top, one edge will be high and the other low at some location in Australia and in these days of sophisticated computer evaluation of the retail selling, so a desired higher than average price can be maintained by the industry over the life of the so called discount cycle. But some motorists will pay a higher rather than lower that average price. But the industry overall gets increased profit from the marketing cycle.:confused:

We think ourselves lucky in some states to have the opportunity to participate in the illusion thus created by the oil industry of price reacting to "competition" but it is not so.:nownow:

Some states like Tasmanian motorists have been exploited by controlled high prices and no such low cycles, but did benefit when the ACCC had a close look at the pricing structures across Tasmania and retail prices on average dropped, they may have returned to the industry desired retail level by now:( i.e. well above average mainland selling levels:cry::blackeye:.

Perhaps our Tasmanian members may wish to comment to point out the present today pricing at each level of the retail selling of fuel.

There is considerable price creep between basic ULP pricing to 95 RON Fuel and then on to the variously marketed Premium fuels, LPG Gas pricing and of course diesel that was once always marketed at lower than the unleaded fuel price as a cheap by product of refining other fuel stocks.

So called marketing additives play a significant part in charging different pricing structures and it pays to keep a close eye on those price levels and the real cost of marketing a nice smelling fuel at the pump.:wink2:

So keep your eye on your app as you will save by avoiding the high boosted fuel cost that is the real consequence of the artificial industry created selling "cycle" Well done.:D

Ken:)
 
Yep - pretty easy to work out really. A bit of simple tech and we don't need to worry about whether Tuesdays are cheap days.

Cheers

Justin
 
I had a chuckle today while reading the morning paper.

I was reading the Friday morning Herald Sun, the important part the Your Say Page 55 when I came across this gem that seems quite appropriate in an automobile chat section


Viscous attack

A lot of people can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in Australia. Well, there's a very simple answer. nobody bothered to check the oil and we just didn't know we were getting low.

The reason for that is purely geographical. Our oil is located in Bass Strait, East Queensland Shale Fields, Canning Basin, Perth Basin, and the North-West Continental Shelf. But our dipsticks are located in Canberra.

Jack Wiles, Gilmore ACT.


Bravo a man after my own heart and devilish humour :wink2: :D

Ken:)
 
jaahn said:
Hi,
It appears that the price of fuel has jumped very recently here in Newcastle. I went to get some 95 and was astonished to see prices of 160+ . However on Fuel watch the best price today is 148 near me. That is at independents.
Shell service stations here seem intent on driving customers away with their prices. 160 on fuel watch. However the Coles ones can offer up to 20c a liter off with silly offers. So they rip off other customers 20c.:(
Jaahn
Click to expand...

My Picasso is ok for E10/94/95RON and I got a fill yesterday at 119.9c/L.


Sent from my iPad using aussiefrogs
 
I'm always reminded of the words spoken to me by an ex Rolls Royce employee. He told me that if I was concerned about how much it would cost to run one, perhaps I shouldn't aspire to own one.........
 
Kim Luck said:
I'm always reminded of the words spoken to me by an ex Rolls Royce employee. He told me that if I was concerned about how much it would cost to run one, perhaps I shouldn't aspire to own one.........
Click to expand...

So true - Rolls Royces always did use a LOT of fuel !

Cheers

Justin
 
N5GTi6 said:
So true - Rolls Royces always did use a LOT of fuel !

Cheers

Justin
Click to expand...

And whether you had a 20c per litre discount voucher or not, in the scheme of things, it generally didn't matter.....:wink2:
 
ACCC takes their eys off the ball, or pea under the thimble trickery!!

Hah, same here in Melbourne, ,most fuel outlets have hiked prices. We just returned from a round trip, "up Country" and had to buy fuel in Shepparton I decided that I would get my tank full at the Maroopna BP Just out of Shepparton on the way to Kyabram where we had some business to do, we paid 1.30.9 for "Ultimate" diesel, nice smelling stuff :wink2: ULP on the board price was 132.9, 95 Ron was 144.9 :eek: and gas was 79.9 I feel sorry for those that have converted to using LPG they are being held to ransom.:evil:

Anyway as we drove out of Maroopna (the BP garage there had Diesel one whole cent cheaper so would have saved 40 cents. So any froggers passing through Maroopna on their way to Shep, use the cheaper one, though it is not as flash and new as the other BP on the main Road.

When we got to Kyabram the fuel generally was a few cents higher than Shepparton, but I noticed that one Servo had LPG gas at 65 cents now I wonder why this was so much lower than the Shepp. Price Maybe the owner and his staff and families use LPG.

Echuca was on Show Weekend so all fuel prices seem to be jacked up, or maybe they always are :eek:

I was a bit disappointed to see the ACCC has swallowed the myth of the discount cycle, saying that motorists could save money, by taking advantage of the oil industries created and self managed hike up fast and slow to lower artificial cycle, they really need a kick up the rump..:disappr:

There have been some upswings and down turns in the dollar parity, but nothing that would justify as 20 to 25 cent per litre price hike.

Anyway, onward and upward I guess..

Ken
 
I’ve come to the conclusion that APCO and United are likely to keep them more honest......Ballarat Bendigo and Broadmeadows are where I find reasonable pricing in Vic.


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Much simpler up country. Tanker comes once a month to fill the bulk tanks. Price is irrelevant because he's the only supplier. Bill comes the next month, sometimes up, sometimes down. No problems wondering what fuel to use. Petrol is standard unleaded, diesel is diesel.
 
Price hiking might be official;ly sanctioone

pinnaroo said:
Much simpler up country. Tanker comes once a month to fill the bulk tanks. Price is irrelevant because he's the only supplier. Bill comes the next month, sometimes up, sometimes down. No problems wondering what fuel to use. Petrol is standard unleaded, diesel is diesel.
Click to expand...

Pretty well what it should be over the whole country in a real market economy. But sadly with the ACCC falling for the so called discount cycle garbage, that defeatist attitude has lead to some of the most vicious price hikes in the Metropolitan area. I feel for those like my son who would prefer to use 98 RON fuel in his old Porsche to see that hit 1. 168 to 1.169 a litre and even Diesel in Melbourne was a steady agreed between retailers price of $1.399 the price that Shell have been pushing for the last 12 months or so.:eek: I have seen higher but refuse to pay that and even yesterday I hung off purchasing even though the Megane tank was getting low.

Anyway I surprisingly found a large and busy BP fuel station that had Diesel at $1.309 and that immediately saved me about $4.60 on the tankful I purchased. I find it remarkable that others almost in collusion were happy to rip off customers with the higher price and many other vehicles have larger tanks to fill than the Megane.:cry: Full tank to full tank I travelled 612 kilometres between fills, but a far cry from those very cheap $1.116 previous fills earlier.

Pity that the ACCC capitulated and drank the industry Kool aid, so from here on to Christmas I can't see the ACCC doing anything about controlled by industry higher pricing.

Pity the poor country motorists if that attitude extends into the country with lame excuses as to "added transport costs"

PS in our travels we noted a lot of fuel tankers branded and otherwise on the move in the general metro area.

I note that Viva Energy has just built the biggest crude oil storage tank in Australia as part of a $300 million investment in Geelong refinery. The manager Thys Heyns says the tank that will hold 100 million litres of crude oil "This tank increases our crude oil storage capacity by 40 per cent and in fact can hold enough crude oil to meet Victoria's needs for about three days" The tank cost $50 million to erect and yes I think we might just be paying for it!!:eek:

The Swiss based energy trading titan Vitol paid $2.9 billion for the Geelong refinery and 870 Shell Branded service stationsin early in 2014. the refinery, one of four left in the nation can process 120,000 barrels of oil a day, to make petrol, diesel, jet fuel, bitumen, liquefied petroleum gas, propylene, solvents, avgas and marine fuel oil.

When Vitol bought the loss making Geelong refinery in 2014, it said it had five years to prove itself sustainable. Viva spun off its service station assets into a listed property trust mid last year, allowing it to post a $1.21 billion net profit for the 2016 Calendar year - well up from the $159.8 million profit in 2015.

Rival refiner Caltex (yes the ones that exported most of their refining supply chain $600 million dollar refining business offshore, some years back) is also upgrading its local fuel storage capacity, spending $75 million to install new tanks at its Newport fuel terminal. Based on a report in the Melbourne Herald Sun November 23, 2017. Financial pages.

Fascinating to see both the domestic Energy supply chain and the transport and fuel energy stock supply chain be concentrated to the extent that each can now easily influence, of their own decision and volition! the daily price that consumers will be forced to pay in higher fuel charges, Electricity costs and able control the added taxes and margins and so forth, that One nation quaintly pointed out recently, that the big sellers added costs between the supply and retailing to clip additional profit and yes, I don't think the ACCC is listening or creating competition in Energy markets.

Not looking good, but plenty of margin for artificially created high jumps in pricing and a slow roll down to allow savvy consumers to buy at THEIR low pricing (ie. not dictated by market forces cycles)
 
I seem to recall the French owners saying the Shell brand would concentrate on commercial sales eg bitumen, avtur etc.
I don’t bother with the old players, but use United, APCO, Metro, Liberty etc.
Maybe they get their supplies via tankers from Singapore these days.


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Some slight signs of competition on latest drive Metro to Country and Return.

Ah well bought my diesel at $1.257 on another country trip, of course Metro prices well above that but there were some signs that competition is forcing some pricing to be more competitive, i.e. Shell at Wallan was comparable with United and much lower than Metro on every corners set pricing.:)

Noted that ULP was $127.9, LPG was 69.9 (still way too high) E10 was $125.9, and Shell in the same Country town was way lower than Metro pricing.

BP had some competitive others seemed in line with their competitors, you really have to check the pricing as you drive and buy where your dollar gets you most! On this full tank to full tank did 390 km between fills, so saved a bit.:D

Not buying too much at Caltex these days.....though..

Waiting for the ACCC to find the elephant tracks....

Ken
 
Kenfuego said:
Sad that Jaahn. Shell has settled down a bit with the Diesel price, but it is still high in Melbourne with 127.9 the average, but then we seem to be re-routing our trips so that we get our 116.9 Diesel Price and as we drove back to Melbourne along Bell Street, there was one lone BP Station near Merri Creek that doesn't want to sell fuel to anyone but brain dead motorists who last Monday were 147.9 a Litre for Diesel, :eek: now that is a dead set rip off as even the Heidleberg West BP was in the 127.9 range, but our full tank meant no need to purchase Diesel for a week or so and I get to visit my older brother in Bendigo as well! :D

How about those that have converted to LPG or have modern LPG fuelled vehicles? Gas prices in Melbourne that used to be in the 50's range of prices are now 69c a litre on average and I saw one at 75 cents a litre :eek: How is that for you Interstate guys? NO excuse for those extremes in prices IMHO!

Need a new Motorists advocate in the Federal Parliament. Hope Fuel prices get some coverage in the upcoming Queensland Election - has the Election announcement done anything to lower prices there?

Need to keep up the pressure on the pollies I think.

Keep your observations coming in on those local pricing changes. There was an article suggesting that NSW had better fuel pricing legislation but my casual observation of just over the border pricing doesn't seem to indicate much effect, In Echuca Moama prices lately seem uncompetitive - same basic pricing structure either side of the border and United doesn't seem to be keeping prices down like they used too. Sad really for country motorists.

Ken
Click to expand...

We made it as high as bundaburg a few months back. I was driving an LPG vehicle towing .... averaging about 35L/100km. So just under 200kms to the tank. Honestly, out of Victoria I'd just tear the LPG tanks out and refit the petrol tanks. I have twin tanks where the petrol tank used to be ... and 38litres of petrol in a small tank in the rear wheel arch. If I had a standard sized petrol tank, I just would have refused to use LPG. In QLD especially it was hovering around 99cents a litre. In quite a few places I'd be driving around searching for a petrol station with LPG pumps that were not out of order. I'd finally find one and the LPG would be 95centl/L (instead of all of 85 like the others). I asked the guy at the register WTF is going on with all of the out of order LPG pumps in the area. He told me the tanker driver that fills the LPG tank said the others all put "Out of order" signs on the pumps rather than pay such high prices for LPG.

LPG is a thing of the past. Over the last 10years the modern turbo diesel and destroyed the large petrol engined car. With no cars fitted with large petrol engines we have no cars being converted to LPG. Every new petrol station that has been in in town over the last few years, doesn't have an LPG pump. As the other stations big storage tanks need to be re-tested and stamped. They will likely remove the LPG pumps (due to the enormous cost of re-compliancing there storage tanks).

seeya,
Shane L.
 
Political solutions, higher tax, higher regulation,= higher pricing to consumers!

DoubleChevron said:
We made it as high as bundaburg a few months back. I was driving an LPG vehicle towing .... averaging about 35L/100km. So just under 200kms to the tank. Honestly, out of Victoria I'd just tear the LPG tanks out and refit the petrol tanks. I have twin tanks where the petrol tank used to be ... and 38litres of petrol in a small tank in the rear wheel arch. If I had a standard sized petrol tank, I just would have refused to use LPG. In QLD especially it was hovering around 99cents a litre. In quite a few places I'd be driving around searching for a petrol station with LPG pumps that were not out of order. I'd finally find one and the LPG would be 95centl/L (instead of all of 85 like the others). I asked the guy at the register WTF is going on with all of the out of order LPG pumps in the area. He told me the tanker driver that fills the LPG tank said the others all put "Out of order" signs on the pumps rather than pay such high prices for LPG.

LPG is a thing of the past. Over the last 10years the modern turbo diesel and destroyed the large petrol engined car. With no cars fitted with large petrol engines we have no cars being converted to LPG. Every new petrol station that has been in in town over the last few years, doesn't have an LPG pump. As the other stations big storage tanks need to be re-tested and stamped. They will likely remove the LPG pumps (due to the enormous cost of re-compliancing there storage tanks).

seeya,
Shane L.
Click to expand...

That sort of reminds me of the initial licensing of Tankers hauling LPG, they were initially licensed for 10 years, but when that deadline approached the political solution of the day was simply to extend that safe period for another 10 years. My friend who told me this was then Bolte's Private Secretary. Ron used to say that he always tried to avoid following those big tankers along a highway with his family on board, just-in-case the pollies had made the wrong decision!!

That stamping of cylinders with a new co "compliance" date is not without some issues too, one of my hobby tanks was stamped on the outer shell of the pressure vessel with no concern that the stamping position substantially weakened the metal fabric:eek: I still have the tank the idiot stamped, but would not ever try to get it filled. The proper place is on the collar shield (no pressure sensitivity there).

But when a dollar cost is concerned most governments seem to find a way to re-regulate safety margins, so don't be surprised if in the face of losing outlets, the regulators find a new, no or low cost, "safety nirvana":eek:

The actual compliance cost and replacement schedule of course would have been factored in by the many sales of product with the early safety regulations and the equipment written down. They used to put that dollar contingency price in the Fuel Company annual reports to allow for fluctuations in crude oil pricing years back, but now all that is a great oil company secret they don't reveal. You pay for those contingencies in pricing but then they are trotted out as excuses to hike prices. Real thimble and pea guessing game and they hold the whip hand over consumers, and especially if real competition can be suppressed in the market place.

The ACCC was there to protect the consumers, but seem to get taken in by the propaganda machines these days. With the amount of LPG exported and sold under the domestic rate we the consumers pay, the price should be less than half that it is when supplies can be so easily manipulated to "justify" rip off pricing IMHO!

The "green" politicals will eventually "get" diesel consumers to pay more in the name of saving?? the planet but only if consumers don't wake up to the enormous con that is being perpetrated by the profiteers. And no real (rather than fantasy) benefit to any consumer.

Ken
 
Can someone tell me what the ACCC does? They call themselves the consumer watchdog and monitor prices but what do they actually achieve? Fuel can go up 20 or 30 cents overnight for no apparent reason and the ACCC sit there and watch it. I want a job like that where I can sit on my bum all day watching a screen and produce nothing.

Other consumer products like bread or milk doesn't just jump 20 cents over night but petrol does and no one says a word.

When a tanker delivers fuel doesn't the proprietor know how much he paid for it? Does he not know what price he paid for that load of fuel in the ground? Then how can the price jump up and down a dozen times while he's selling it?

Every other retailer in the world buys stock from the wholesaler and marks it up and sells it and when they reorder they adjust there selling price to what they paid for it, they don't put there prices up and down while it's sitting on the shelf.

Why are petrol stations allowed to and the ACCC goes along with it?
 
Kenfuego said:
That sort of reminds me of the initial licensing of Tankers hauling LPG, they were initially licensed for 10 years, but when that deadline approached the political solution of the day was simply to extend that safe period for another 10 years. My friend who told me this was then Bolte's Private Secretary. Ron used to say that he always tried to avoid following those big tankers along a highway with his family on board, just-in-case the pollies had made the wrong decision!!

That stamping of cylinders with a new co "compliance" date is not without some issues too, one of my hobby tanks was stamped on the outer shell of the pressure vessel with no concern that the stamping position substantially weakened the metal fabric:eek: I still have the tank the idiot stamped, but would not ever try to get it filled. The proper place is on the collar shield (no pressure sensitivity there).

But when a dollar cost is concerned most governments seem to find a way to re-regulate safety margins, so don't be surprised if in the face of losing outlets, the regulators find a new, no or low cost, "safety nirvana":eek:

The actual compliance cost and replacement schedule of course would have been factored in by the many sales of product with the early safety regulations and the equipment written down. They used to put that dollar contingency price in the Fuel Company annual reports to allow for fluctuations in crude oil pricing years back, but now all that is a great oil company secret they don't reveal. You pay for those contingencies in pricing but then they are trotted out as excuses to hike prices. Real thimble and pea guessing game and they hold the whip hand over consumers, and especially if real competition can be suppressed in the market place.

The ACCC was there to protect the consumers, but seem to get taken in by the propaganda machines these days. With the amount of LPG exported and sold under the domestic rate we the consumers pay, the price should be less than half that it is when supplies can be so easily manipulated to "justify" rip off pricing IMHO!

The "green" politicals will eventually "get" diesel consumers to pay more in the name of saving?? the planet but only if consumers don't wake up to the enormous con that is being perpetrated by the profiteers. And no real (rather than fantasy) benefit to any consumer.

Ken
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing CNG with LPG. I'm pretty sure Australia imports its LPG! CNG requires big heavy tanks with a very small capacity. That is why it has never been used in australia (even though we have billions of gallons of the stuff).

seeya,
Shane L.
 
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