USA Petrol Prices !!! We are so Ripped Off!!!

[Blue Shadow]

You put some time in to that, excellent work. Bow can you do QLD,
LOL

[Qwerty321]

Originally Posted by Blue Shadow

You put some time in to that, excellent work. Bow can you do QLD,
LOL

I might actually do that later today or tomorrow for curiosities sake. I'm a student, the weathers **** and it's summer break. I've got a lot of time to kill

[Vekgib]

Originally Posted by snowcone

It's rarely under $1.20 here in Newcastle and we have a pipeline straight from Sydney.
We are royally reamed at every opportunity by the oil companies and the government

Dirt cheap.
148.9cpl in Bowral today.

[XR Martin]

I think the fact that im not going to get shot at while fueling up my car is worth every extra cent that I have to pay over our American friends.

[XBROO]

I heard on the news the other day that crude oil prices are the same as 12 years ago. Too bad the pump isn't the same.

[irish2]

Originally Posted by Qwerty321

Tax. America has really badly maintained roads (compared to us) and a lot of toll roads. NZ on the other hand has one toll road (a tunnel north of Auckland that costs $2.60) and really well mainained roads (never seen a pothole in my life. No wait, saw one but they filled it up in a week - it was near my house). However we pay $1.70 a litre due to a 51% petrol tax. I believe Australia is somewhere in the middle.

P.S. When new american cars start marketing on automatic pothole avoidance and tyres talk about pothole protection, you know how bad their roads must be.

Funny they have higher speed limits, and less speed enforcement then.

[Qwerty321]

Originally Posted by irish2

Funny they have higher speed limits, and less speed enforcement then.

The well used Interstates are well maintained (well some of their bridges are structurally ******, but no potholes). Mind you a lot of them are tolled and privately managed.

Its when you go to the less used roads, or start going into the council maintained suburban roads in lower-middle class areas that you start seeing a lot of potholes.

You could go into the ****tiest part of Auckalnd and I promise you won't see a pothole. Roads are well maintained all across the board. I assume Australia is the same.

[Giant Cranium]

Originally Posted by irish2

Funny they have higher speed limits, and less speed enforcement then.

Speeds knits are 55mph in NYS AND 65 mph in the rest of the country. And every road I have driven on is in worse condition than a similar Rd in Australia. But the tolerance for speeding is incredible. I did 80mph past a cop in a 55 zone and not even a blink

[XBROO]

Originally Posted by Giant Cranium

Speeds knits are 55mph in NYS AND 65 mph in the rest of the country. And every road I have driven on is in worse condition than a similar Rd in Australia. But the tolerance for speeding is incredible. I did 80mph past a cop in a 55 zone and not even a blink

I surprised you're still alive, lucky it's in miles. Because every Kay over is a killer.

[russellw]

Boring stuff alert.

So, some simple facts.

- Our pricing is based on that used for Singapore Light (Brent) Crude
- A barrel is 159 litres - long story as to why it came to be that but blame the Poms and the size of their whiskey barrels.
- Refinery yields from a barrel of oil (typically) are quite high in coking/cracking refineries with very little heavy fuel oil produced and most of the rest diesel or petrol along with a small quantity of LPG. Let's be conservative for the purpose of this exercise and say that the yield is 110 litres of saleable fuel refined from a barrel of light crude
- The tax component is fairly fixed with excise at 39.2 cpl and GST at around 11.5 cpl for a largely immutable tax take of 50.7 cpl

Ok. Now onto calculation of the Gate price - this being the price that the refiner charges at their gate for fuel so the only gap between that and the pump price is transport and retail margins. The former depends where you are (city about 1.5-2 cpl and country 2.5-5 cpl) and the latter is typically between 1.5-2.5 cpl.

The calculation

Refining costs are relatively fixed at about 8 cents per litre yield (we are much less efficient at this than other countries where it is closer to 4 cpl) so when added to the tax take we are looking at fixed costs (not barrel price related) of 58.7 cents per litre. Add to that the refinery margin at around 4cpl and the total is about 62.7 cents per litre.

If our barrel of oil is US$30 that is AU$43 or about 40 cents per litre yield and added to the fixed costs produces a gate price of around 102.7 cpl - in fact it was around 105.6 cpl last week based on the approximately 2 week lag in fuel barrel price drops filtering through. Add our transport costs and retail margin (~3-4 cpl City and 4-7 cpm country) and you get to our pump price.

The impact of a US$5 movement in barrel price is about 6.5 cpl (at current exchange rates) so when it was US$63 a barrel we were a bit lucky that the exchange rates were kinder than they are now as today that would make our base oil cost 83.7 cpl or about 44 cpl above where it is today.

Cheers
Russ

[foxtrot3]

Originally Posted by russellw

Boring stuff alert.

So, some simple facts.

- Our pricing is based on that used for Singapore Light (Brent) Crude
- A barrel is 159 litres - long story as to why it came to be that but blame the Poms and the size of their whiskey barrels.
- Refinery yields from a barrel of oil (typically) are quite high in coking/cracking refineries with very little heavy fuel oil produced and most of the rest diesel or petrol along with a small quantity of LPG. Let's be conservative for the purpose of this exercise and say that the yield is 110 litres of saleable fuel refined from a barrel of light crude
- The tax component is fairly fixed with excise at 39.2 cpl and GST at around 11.5 cpl for a largely immutable tax take of 50.7 cpl

Ok. Now onto calculation of the Gate price - this being the price that the refiner charges at their gate for fuel so the only gap between that and the pump price is transport and retail margins. The former depends where you are (city about 1.5-2 cpl and country 2.5-5 cpl) and the latter is typically between 1.5-2.5 cpl.

The calculation

Refining costs are relatively fixed at about 8 cents per litre yield (we are much less efficient at this than other countries where it is closer to 4 cpl) so when added to the tax take we are looking at fixed costs (not barrel price related) of 58.7 cents per litre. Add to that the refinery margin at around 4cpl and the total is about 62.7 cents per litre.

If our barrel of oil is US$30 that is AU$43 or about 40 cents per litre yield and added to the fixed costs produces a gate price of around 102.7 cpl - in fact it was around 105.6 cpl last week based on the approximately 2 week lag in fuel barrel price drops filtering through. Add our transport costs and retail margin (~3-4 cpl City and 4-7 cpm country) and you get to our pump price.

The impact of a US$5 movement in barrel price is about 6.5 cpl (at current exchange rates) so when it was US$63 a barrel we were a bit lucky that the exchange rates were kinder than they are now as today that would make our base oil cost 83.7 cpl or about 44 cpl above where it is today.

Cheers
Russ

Hi. I have a couple of challenges for you Russ. How much of our fuel is made onshore? From our crude or offshore crude? and How has the Singapore light price changed over the last 6 months? I havent seen any of these numbers for years (since the big caltex refinery in NSW closed).Cheers MD

[castellan]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

Dont bash me for this opinion..Firstly, why does America go to war? For the oil and wars create jobs that help recessions. Second is that Australia is the highest taxed country in the world, possibly due to the government selling their assets of which telstra was the only one that turned a profit, and thirdly, to try and look like they are being responsible, the three things they tax the hardest are petrol (let's all go out and by hybrids and charge them with coal powerstations..), alcohol (fair enough), and tobacco(again fair enough). If your an eco warrior with the hope of a better civilisation it works. But if you are like me and love a beer, but before you crack one gas it down to the servo for a deck, life gets expensive. Whilst the man tries to limit everyone's intake of all 3, they will never completely ban any of them because it's fools like me who get them the revenue. As previously stated, just an opinion

I thought Denmark was the highest taxed country in the world.

Selling Telstra ? maybe the gov make a lot of tax dollars out of other company's, that makes it not so bad for the gov bottom line, maybe ?

[GXL078]

We don't even have the capacity to refine our own fuel in this country anymore. Now that is a disgrace.

We gate ripped off with all things automotive in this country. Summit, Jets etc. send goods free freight all over USA. Here we pay the Rocket tax. Its still cheaper to buy online and pay freight then but local even with the Aussie dollar at $68c. For example, Optima 35 Battery is USD $154 at Summit with free freight, which equates to AUD $222. Cheapest on Aussie EBay is $259.

UK is worse. On an Auto Meter AFR gauge (Summit USD $299, Rocket AUD $575! + freight from USA) UK will add an extra GBP £50 in import taxes.

We will be paying GST on all orders from July this year and it will probably be 15% by then.

Of course my prices don't apply is you are in the trade or know someone etc, so in that case good luck to you. I don't drink, smoke or gamble.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by GXL078

We don't even have the capacity to refine our own fuel in this country anymore. Now that is a disgrace.

I thought we still had 4 refineries here. WA, QLD and 2 in Vic.

[GXL078]

Originally Posted by Vekgib

Dirt cheap.
148.9cpl in Bowral today.

Your kidding, My local was 92c. But no self respecting car enthusiast uses e10 right.

[Boosted8]

There's always a catch though. In order to get fuel for those cheap US prices, you would have to surround yourself with Americans.

It simply is not worth it.

[GXL078]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

I thought we still had 4 refineries here. WA, QLD and 2 in Vic.

I thought they were all going, going gone. Must be just NSW where the majority of the population live and everything is outsourced.

[GXL078]

Double dribble

[GXL078]

Originally Posted by Boosted8

There's always a catch though. In order to get fuel for those cheap US prices, you would have to surround yourself with Americans.

It simply is not worth it.

Now that you mention it. Memories of European vacations in a previous life come flooding back. Thousands of them whining like cats and having one sided conversations telling anyone who would rather not listen everything about themselves, in the QUIET carriage. There are those Americans, and then there are the ones that you see on COPs. I have never actually been there because they don't let riff raff like me into their pristine country.

[Kingsley]

Although relatively minor, we also had a 3 X 3 tax (3c per litre for 3 years) in the 80's that was put on (in NSW) that was supposed to go to road maintenance. When the three years was up the tax remained.

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by XBROO

I heard on the news the other day that crude oil prices are the same as 12 years ago. Too bad the pump isn't the same.

People seem to have really bad perceptions on what used to be. From my memory, petrol was at around 85 cents per litre 12 years ago. Even accounting for a **** poor raise in ones wages over the last 12 years, i would still say that a very large proportion of the population is spending less (as a proportion) of their pay packet on petrol now, than they were 12 years ago. I have seen it for under 99 cents a litre at a few petrol stations today. Almost makes one feel now is a good time to go into the station and layby a few thousand litres.

[commodorenutt]

You're right bob.

I have kept detailed records of all my company cars. Fuel, servicing etc.

I had an AU2 when we first cracked $1.00/litre - a memorable moment, for the wrong reasons.

For the last year I had that AU2 (2005), fuel hovered between a low of 89.9 to a high of 103.5 c/L.

The last time I paid under $1/L was in December 2008 - 99.9c/L

[Qwerty321]

Originally Posted by GXL078

We don't even have the capacity to refine our own fuel in this country anymore. Now that is a disgrace.

We gate ripped off with all things automotive in this country. Summit, Jets etc. send goods free freight all over USA. Here we pay the Rocket tax. Its still cheaper to buy online and pay freight then but local even with the Aussie dollar at $68c. For example, Optima 35 Battery is USD $154 at Summit with free freight, which equates to AUD $222. Cheapest on Aussie EBay is $259.

UK is worse. On an Auto Meter AFR gauge (Summit USD $299, Rocket AUD $575! + freight from USA) UK will add an extra GBP £50 in import taxes.

We will be paying GST on all orders from July this year and it will probably be 15% by then.

Of course my prices don't apply is you are in the trade or know someone etc, so in that case good luck to you. I don't drink, smoke or gamble.

Surely that's wrong. Even New Zealand refines all it's oil itself (Except 98, 98 is imported). If NZ can, Australia definitely can.

[SYZ]

Originally Posted by russellw

[...] Now onto calculation of the Gate price - this being the price that the refiner charges at their gate for fuel so the only gap between that and the pump price is transport and retail margins.

Cheers
Russ

I've never understood why Aussie pump prices are dictated by this infamous "Singapore gate price". What, precisely, is the gate price defined by? And why do our oil companies follow it religiously? Is it in reality an imaginary figure?

I also note that the ACCC is investigating our oil companies' pricing structures [the AGE, 20/01]; they reckon our petrol should be around 12¢/litre LESS at the moment. Although from past evidence, I reckon the ACCC is a toothless tiger. All talk but no action.

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by SYZ

I've never understood why Aussie pump prices are dictated by this infamous "Singapore gate price". What, precisely, is the gate price defined by? And why do our oil companies follow it religiously? Is it in reality an imaginary figure?

I also note that the ACCC is investigating our oil companies' pricing structures [the AGE, 20/01]; they reckon our petrol should be around 12¢/litre LESS at the moment. Although from past evidence, I reckon the ACCC is a toothless tiger. All talk but no action.

I think you have a few things mixed up there. Firstly, oil is priced in Australia based on the regional pricing (which is based on pricing set in singapore simply as they are a large refiner). Oil is traded around the world in a free market, thus is subject to free market pricing. Simply if Australia tried to set a limit on what oil prices or petrol prices would be, then the owners of the products would simply sell their product to the highest buyer. Even if oil was coming out of Bass Strait, then the owner is going to try and sell it to the highest bidder, and it doesnt matter if it Australian or Overseas. If you then said well its Australian oil, then in years to come, those same companies wont be drilling for oil in Australia (and it costs billions of dollars to do so), they will spend their money else where.

The Terminal Gate Pricing on the other hand, is simply a "very open policy" that allows everyone to see what petrol retailers are buying their petrol for at the closest storage or refinery location.

If you view the following link, you will see what most retailers are paying for
their petrol (this can be skewed abit with rebates etc)

http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/tgp/

But technically you will see, that alot of petrol retailers at the moment, are selling petrol at a loss,if they are selling for a $1 a litre. Once again, the motoring bodies are saying that motorists are being ripped off, but the finger must now be pointed at refiners and importers of the fuels. It these guys that are now reaping the hgher margins, and not the retailers, as they arent passing on the savings from drops in oil prices at the Terminal Pricing. But then again, you cant expect something that was probably purchased a month ago, to be reduced as quickly as an overnight plunge in the oil price.

Simple things must also be taken into account. Someone standing behind the counter at the service station on $25 an hour, watching 40 litres a minute ((thats one car a minute roughly), adds 1 cent to a litre of petrol. One car every 5 minutes = 5 cents per litre of petrol.

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

I think you have a few things mixed up there. Firstly, oil is priced in Australia based on the regional pricing (which is based on pricing set in singapore simply as they are a large refiner). Oil is traded around the world in a free market, thus is subject to free market pricing. Simply if Australia tried to set a limit on what oil prices or petrol prices would be, then the owners of the products would simply sell their product to the highest buyer. Even if oil was coming out of Bass Strait, then the owner is going to try and sell it to the highest bidder, and it doesnt matter if it Australian or Overseas. If you then said well its Australian oil, then in years to come, those same companies wont be drilling for oil in Australia (and it costs billions of dollars to do so), they will spend their money else where.

The Terminal Gate Pricing on the other hand, is simply a "very open policy" that allows everyone to see what petrol retailers are buying their petrol for at the closest storage or refinery location.

If you view the following link, you will see what most retailers are paying for
their petrol (this can be skewed abit with rebates etc)

http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/tgp/

But technically you will see, that alot of petrol retailers at the moment, are selling petrol at a loss,if they are selling for a $1 a litre. Once again, the motoring bodies are saying that motorists are being ripped off, but the finger must now be pointed at refiners and importers of the fuels. It these guys that are now reaping the hgher margins, and not the retailers, as they arent passing on the savings from drops in oil prices at the Terminal Pricing. But then again, you cant expect something that was probably purchased a month ago, to be reduced as quickly as an overnight plunge in the oil price.

Simple things must also be taken into account. Someone standing behind the counter at the service station on $25 an hour, watching 40 litres a minute ((thats one car a minute roughly), adds 1 cent to a litre of petrol. One car every 5 minutes = 5 cents per litre of petrol.

Well put.

Most people forget to add the overheads, as mentioned - Labour. Plus there are others - insurance, maintenance, Land Tax & rates, rent, electricity, etc.

Petrol prices are pretty good at the moment, especially if you own a modern vehicle.

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by Qwerty321

Surely that's wrong. Even New Zealand refines all it's oil itself (Except 98, 98 is imported). If NZ can, Australia definitely can.

Mate, if your talking about all the oil that New Zealand produces, then i have seen fish and ship shops in Australia that could refine more oil that New Zealand produces. Just for the record, Refining NZ (as per link below- and the only refinery in NZ), says it only refines half the petrol used in NZ.

http://www.refiningnz.com/

[olfella]

Originally Posted by GXL078

We don't even have the capacity to refine our own fuel in this country anymore. Now that is a disgrace.

And because of that we now need to import all the bitumen that we make roads out of. The side effects of not refining our own has been severely understated IMHO.

[Qwerty321]

Originally Posted by bobthebilda

Mate, if your talking about all the oil that New Zealand produces, then i have seen fish and ship shops in Australia that could refine more oil that New Zealand produces. Just for the record, Refining NZ (as per link below- and the only refinery in NZ), says it only refines half the petrol used in NZ.

http://www.refiningnz.com/

All 98 Octane and All Ethanol Blend petrol is imported. Refining NZ just refines the 91 and 95 Octane pure petrol we use. So if you fill up at Gull or Mobil you use imported petrol, and if you fill up 98 at BP you use imported fuel. This is why only around half the petrol we have is refined here. But yea, your bang on with what you said. Personally I always try to fill up using Caltex or BP 95, support local businesses and whatnot

[Blue Shadow]

This is an interesting thread