Australia: Independent Service Stations Make Headlines
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, 22 October 2008 |
|
Two western Sydney service stations have dropped their petrol prices as
low as 94.9 cents a litre, about 55 cents below the national average
and created lots of natioanl and international headlines for their
business including long car queues.
Police are urging motorists to avoid Sunnyholt Road in Blacktown in
Sydney, where consumers queuing for cheap petrol have banked up traffic
for several kilometres. Bankstown's indepently owned BP service station
started the price war when it dropped its price to 94.9 cents a litre
today.
United Petroleum soon followed, but it has stopped selling fuel after its tanks almost ran dry.
BP has now lifted its unleaded petrol price to $1.39 a litre. Both of
the independent operators say they are being edged out of the market by
big companies and supermarkets.
The price war came after Petrol Commissioner Joe Dimasi accused the oil
companies of apparent profiteering by not passing on the plumetting
crude oil price, which is down by more than half from its July 11 peak.
Mr Dimasi told this morning's AM program motorists should be paying two
or three cents less than the current petrol prices. "I've been
looking at the price of petrol against international benchmarks and
I've been observing that it's staying a little bit above for a week or
so..." he said. "Now, I accept the oil companies' response that there
is a lot of volatility and on a day-to-day basis, you can't expect
these things to line up perfectly.
PetrolWorld 211008
|
