Highway bloody robbery!

[coljones]

With respect......if you buy fuel randomly throughout the year, you too are averaging the cost of fuel. But, if you are smart, you can enjoy the wonders of market speculation and take advantage of one of the most predictable price cycles that occur in the world. Do you really think that because we pay an "average" price that it is actually stable and predictable? The TGP has moved by 3 cents in the last few days! You city dwellers have the advantage of incredible price wars that us country folk can never take advantage of.

I would have paid 135.09c on Monday for ULP.

 

Thanks also for the remark that we are all tax cheats. Yes, the majority of our fuel (diesel) is a business expense and we claim around 90% because that is what we use for our business.

 

All I was trying to say is that prices are a volatile thing. You city folk have the advantage of a TGP price indicator that tells you if the bowser price is cheap or not. If it's cheap buy it! There and then. In the next hour it might change.

 

In the farming world if Vladimir Putin says something about troops in Ukraine (Ukraine being a major world wheat grower) it can mean $1000s out of (or into) a farming family's pocket from the price speculations on the world wheat market.

The city folk should thank you Peter because you live next to where you work and you don't get much out of all the business, GST and income tax you pay that goes towards the city roads that transport people for long distances because they have decided that living next door to where they work doesn't suit them.

 

 

[coljones]

I will admit however that fuel is an essential commodity and people will tend to pay whatever it costs. The city fuel price cycle is a strange thing.snip snip snip

The city fuel price cycle is also a mystery to me - on Wed night it jumped by about 12c/l near Ashfield for no apparent reason and it occurred at a fair number of outlets. I managed to get it for 6c less but I am not sure driving all over Sydney looking for a bargain is actually economical.

 

For me 'ealth I have started to ride the pushbike again - you too will have to get the Rand to Henty Railtrail up and get fit and save some money

 

 

[dazza 38]

I was told a while ago that diesel was expensive here ( as Pete mentioned supply and demand) because of the mines which use a ship load to run their machinery.

 

 

[facthunter]

The mines use a heap for power generation. They don't want to network as it would help the smaller miners who they want to keep out.'

 

When you get crude oil it varies somewhat but you can only get a certain amount of tar wax, diesel petrol and gas You can "crack" some of the heavier ones into lighter molecules but there is a limit, so if the demand for diesel gets proportionately higher it gets more expensive. (market forces). Why do the prices get put up at weekends and public holidays? BECAUSE THEY CAN. Suckers.. Nev

 

 

[Soleair]

Given how full of the brown stuff pollies are, led by Phony 'no funding cut for ABC' Abbot, this poo bus is the perfect way to at last get something useful out of them.

 

 

[turboplanner]

I posted several cost centres a while back, and while I haven't researched it, I suspect the biggest factor to date in the increased cost of diesel is excise/tax.

 

After the fuel crisis of 1979 many of us switches to diesel engines, which at the time burnt much less than petrol engines, and the cost of diesel which was less expensive to refine than petrol was way cheaper.

 

That change became a deluge, which would have reduced the excise intake by hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

Today the fuel costs are about the same, and if you change over the current model Nissan Patrol within five years, your total Prime/Operating cost is lower with the petrol engine.

 

My favourite 4WD was a Nissan 720 with about 80 hp - slow on the road but able to idle along on the dry sand at the top of the beach, or in mud up to the chassis.

 

In 1986 I did a trip up the Newell Highway to Noosa, and spent a week on Fraser Island in Low Range. Fuel consumption was 7.91 km/litre over 4835 km - a total of 527 litres

 

Total fuel cost at 0.45c/litre was $238.06 - a cheap holiday

 

In my current Navara, with around twice the power, total fuel would be 15.9% more at 611 litres.

 

However fuel cost at $1.53c/litre would make the total cost of fuel $802.39 - an increase of 340%

 

So it's not surprising that people choose shorter trips these days, and in my case distribute my day to day money up the highways and around Queensland less than I used to.

 

Dazza can tell us the horrific effect the fall off in tourism has wreaked on the Gold Coast (not all because of fuel cost).

 

So I would argue the Federal and State Governments should change the way excise is rated in this huge country with such long distances.

 

Going back to the cost centres of fuel, I suspect the evil oil giant is not creaming off our life savings - they are certainly smaller versions of what they used to be, and I suspect they are doing it hard in terms of profit on sales to distributors - and we know being a fuel distributor is a good way of going out of business.

 

I'm not sure if any of you have ever heard of peak oil, but M. King Hubbert who worked in the US oil industry made a prediction in 1954 that the economic recovery of oil would peak around the end of the 20th century, and he was surprisingly accurate. After Peak Oil there is initially a gentle slide down the bell curve but inevitably costs rise sharply as oil reserves have to be pumped from deeper wells etc.

 

The price was never expected to exactly reflect the sharpening fall of the bell curve, because it is affected by market forces and stocks above ground but what was expected was a series of ebbs and flows, with the price edging up with each cycle.

 

Peak Oil is the reason I'm so keen to see alternative power.

 

I've attached The Hubbert graph, by my reference file is too large, will see if I can find the link

 

[ATTACH]47507._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

[facthunter]

Power FROM the PEOPLE. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

Powerin ... I didn't mean to accuse you of tax fraud as though I am without sin myself. If you do use fuel for private use, but add it into your farm's fuel bill, good on you. That's a bit that the Man don't get. No doubt over a tax year your wife delivers more in GST to the government coffers through her shopping for your family than my wife does simply because prices for things which attract GST are lower in Sydney than Henty because of the transport cost involved in getting stuff from the coast to Henty.

 

I suppose the Bogey Man in all this is the bloke who sets the price for Singapore fuel.

 

OME

 

 

[turboplanner]

Here's the link to the King Hubbert paper (sorry I had the date wrong)

 

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

 

 

[old man emu]

Went for a ride on my bike this afternoon. I paid $1.37 per litre for 91 octane 100% petrol. Then I rode 25 kms towards Sydney as passed a servo of the same company. They didn't have 91 pure, only 91 E10 at $1.47 per litre.

 

I wonder why less petrol, further from the fuel dump costs 10 cents per litre more.

 

OME

 

 

[Soleair]

Ha! Call that expensive? -try living in Mudgee.

 

Bruce

 

 

[Powerin]

Powerin ... I didn't mean to accuse you of tax fraud as though I am without sin myself. If you do use fuel for private use, but add it into your farm's fuel bill, good on you. That's a bit that the Man don't get. No doubt over a tax year your wife delivers more in GST to the government coffers through her shopping for your family than my wife does simply because prices for things which attract GST are lower in Sydney than Henty because of the transport cost involved in getting stuff from the coast to Henty.

I suppose the Bogey Man in all this is the bloke who sets the price for Singapore fuel.

 

OME

No worries OME, no offence taken. Harvest time, with long days driving in the heat (our trucks aren't air conditioned), makes one a bit over-sensitive at that hour of the night. My apologies for over-reacting as well.

 

 

[old man emu]

Hope you are having a field day with the harvest out there at Henty. You're taking in canola, aren't you? How many tonne to the acre are you getting?

 

I can sympathize with you. It was 39 at Camden this afternoon when I went out for my ride.

 

OME

 

 

[sain]

 

source: http://xkcd.com/951/

 

see also: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=951:_Working

 

 

[sain]

Not to defend the petrol companies, but....

 

One of the things that makes collusion so hard for the ACCC to prove is that the big oil companies don't need to get involved at all. All the franchise holders need to do is go for a quick drive around the nearby service stations and have a look at what their prices are. If the competitors are more expensive then they arn't going to miss many customers being more expensive. There is no actual collusion here, because the franchise holders don't actually have to talk to each other about it at all. Things like the various online fuel price sites just make life so much easier for them. They don't even need to go for a drive now.

 

The tax rates on fuel are interesting as well. I believe the commonwealth stabs us for about 40c / litre for most fuel types, plus GST. so a $1.49 litre of fuel (cheapest of the ones I drove past in canberra today) gets 54.9c / litre going to the commonwealth (around $33 for a 60 litre fill up). Most states also have taxes on fuel, which is one of the reasons we pay more for fuel in canberra than in nearby goulburn or sydney. I believe the margin for the service stations (above the wholesale cost of fuel, not taking into account wages, and other costs) is something on the order of 10c / litre, but I don't have a source for that.

 

We have to face it guys, the governement isn't going to smack the petrol companies because they make too much money from it. The only time they stop increasing the tax rate on fuel is when the economy goes even more pair shaped than it is now. Time to upgrade to electric sonexes!

 

 

[Powerin]

From what I've heard the margin on fuel for servos is a lot less than 10c. I am led to believe most servos make very little on fuel...in many cases it is a loss leader to bring customers into their convenience/food store.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's a piddling amount that the servos make. Evaporation would almost wipe it out. I recall gas at 4... yes.. FOUR cents a litre. You could drive without really considering the fuel cost. WE aren't doing too bad by world standards. Europe is probably double what we pay.

 

When I was up in the NT recently everyone was whinging about the cost of fuel. It's not really much more expensive than Melbourne unless you get way off the beaten track and the total population up there is HALF thst of Geelong, for the whole of the NT.. It's all got to be distributed and there is hardly anyone there to use it. I think they are doing OK but don't let facts get in the way of a good whinge. Nev

 

 

[SDQDI]

It depends on the distances travelled too, when wife and I were at hillston we were clocking up 3000 Ks per week on average but back up at Quirindi it's a lot less. So someone in Melbourne wouldn't on average burn as much as someone in the territory.

 

 

[facthunter]

That's a lot. You are doing 3/4 as much driving time as a normal weeks working time. Not a good lifestyle. It's much worse in stop start gridlocked traffic, with TOLLs to pay as well. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Here's the link to the King Hubbert paper (sorry I had the date wrong)http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

...and he could not have foreseen the vast increase in demand, due to rise of China, India,...