Fuel Prices

[Louwai]

A Commonwealth Government excise of 38.143cpl is applied to all fuels on the retail market except LPG (However, LPG is now hit with a new, but lower excise which will increase each year until 2015). In fairness, these are both way less than Govt. taxes in the majority of the EU - especially the UK. The reality is, without the huge income flow from these excises we'd all be paying higher taxes.

If you read the Shell (Singapore) site they state that all refineries are working at 100% capacity and demand from China and India has increased to astounding degrees - thus supply is short. Petrol being a supply and demand commodity means that it gets distributed based on a combination of price and volume. Fuel prices in China and India are not far off what we pay here because their demand is for volumes 20 times more than Australia. China and India are logistically easier to get fuel to than Australia plus the transport costs (due to shorter distance) are less. The higher the volume the better the discount rate. So... guess where the fuel is going?

I've read that even if production were to increase by 35%, Australia wouldn't be any better off because demand in China and India will just soak all that additional product up. China especially is in a sustained upswing in demand so it's just going to get worse. India won't be far behind.

I just asked a friend of mine.
He lives in Ningbo in China & today he paid RMB 5.2 / L (AU$0.82)

When I lived in China, 2001 to 2003, fuel was then about AU$0.50 / L
so they haven't gone up all that much.

[Bill Gaheer]

Fuel is almost $ 1.53 Aus - INR 60 per Ltr. in India as of today.