The great $5 million fuel rip-off

13 November 2008

The RAC is accusing the WA fuel industry of taking motorists for a ride and systematically over charging them $350,000 a day at the bowser.
 
The RAC’s Manager Vehicle Policy Mike Upton said the retail and wholesale prices of ULP have remained artificially high for the past three weeks and the RAC estimates that WA motorists have been ripped off to the tune of $5 million over that time.

Mr Upton said the price was still not dropping at a comparable rate to the price of oil and that profiteering was occurring at both the retail and wholesale level.

“The average price of ULP in the metropolitan area today is about 124.2 cents a litre but a fairer price would be around 116 cents. The RAC believes retail margins are 4 cents too high and wholesale margins are also 4 cents too high,” Mr Upton said.

The price of oil is dropping, with the Tapis price (which the Australian fuel is based on) at A$90a barrel compared to A$112 at the same time last month.

The retail margin placed on fuel has blown out from the long term average of 4-5 cents per litre to almost 9 cents. The RAC considers a fair margin to be about 4 cents.

“Anyone buying fuel in the metropolitan area today should not pay more than 123 cents a litre, with some petrol stations selling ULP at up to 159 cents per litre while others are selling for as low as 118.9,” Mr Upton said.

To find out where the cheapest petrol is visit the FuelWatch website at www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au

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