Why the hell are we paying so much for our petrol? The price of crude oil is a third of what it peaked at and yet we're still paying more than two thirds of what we did at that point - and the AUD is stronger now against the USD than back then.

So I ask with tears in my eyes, WHAT THE HELL!? I had a distinct sense of being bent over while filling up my car today. It wasn't pleasant.

/rant

Drive less.

^ Yeah I filled up just before easter...and still have 1/3rd of a tank left. And I have made my quarterly trip to my parents on the sunshine coast, which is almost half a tank!

thank godfor diesel powered trucks

I hear that LPG is good, right Mr. Hardware?

euphoria, unfortunately you are wrong. The aussie dollar now sits at ~70c US, Rather than the 90-odd it did whilst oil was at $150 or so a barrel. If you'd like me to go into further detail upon why you are wrong, let me know.

I hear that LPG is good, right Mr. Hardware?

Ken Oath it is. If you're so worried about the price of fuel, why don't you use the cheapest stuff, ie LPG at 50c/ltr? krudd puts it on for you for only a few hundred bucks.

last edited by MrHardware at 19:51:54 23/Apr/09

talking about petrol, what the f*** was with the traffic this afternoon, took me near 2 hours to get home after work, southside to northside :'(

yeah beats me trin, at one point i did 55m in 7 mins. RAGE.

Tonight and last night there was s*** loads of traffic around Indro/Sherwood until 7ish!

I think it's quite well priced atm actually
As much as it'd hurt though, I reckon it really needs to go way up in price

Fair enough - my memory must be dodgy on the exchange rates at the time.

But still:

$150 USD / barrel = $166 AUD (@ 0.9 USD to 1 AUD)
$50 USD / barrel = $71 AUD (@ 0.7 USD to 1 AUD)

So the price of crude in AUD has more than halved?

Highest petrol prices went was what, $1.55 per litre? Today I paid $1.14.

So the petrol price per litre has come a quarter while crude has come down half. Are my calculations wrong?

yep, because even if oil was free, petrol would still be ~45c/ltr, when you incorporate government excise, gst, cost to refine, servo's margin etc etc etc

so 1.55-45c = 1.10
1.14-45c = .69

so oil price has pretty much halved, and the real cost of petrol has pretty much halved.

last edited by MrHardware at 20:17:26 23/Apr/09

Can't wait till I go diesel..

I'm happy paying $1~ because I for ages there I was paying more like $1.50~

filled up last night for $80 - 76 litres @ 1.07
would normally last me 2 weeks minimum, sometimes 3 weeks .. but I'm off to the beach on the weekend so I doubt it'll last me a week

The Government need to find a country which is oil enriched and make up some good excuse to invade and send oil back home.

That should drop fuel prices.

i'm happy with paying for fuel in gold coins rather than gold notes

It was 1.02$ at redbank this morning, which doesn't seem that bad?

I thought Australia traded oil/gasoline on the singapore market which hasn't dropped quite so much.

talking about petrol, what the f*** was with the traffic this afternoon, took me near 2 hours to get home after work, southside to northside :'(

What roads? There was a Cement mixer on its side in south brisbane.

What roads? There was a Cement mixer on its side in south brisbane.

That was 9:30 this morning. I doubt traffic this afternoon would still be affected?

well i had to go from rocklea to kelvin grove, and apparently i chose the wrong roads. went ipswich road whatever to the gabba, twas f***ed,
decided to try go through southbank over william jolly, then i was f***ed.

thought there must've been a jumper on the story bridge, or gateway, cuz the traffics never that bad :(

its bad all over the place. No idea why though. I know there was a set of traffic lights just before the cultural centre busway bust stop that were broken and there were cops directing traffic.

greazy, that was the cement mixer. Guy rolled and took out the light box as well as electricity. I would have thought it would have been cleared by peak hour this afternoon

I thought Australia traded oil/gasoline on the singapore market which hasn't dropped quite so much.

Not really nF, but you're kinda on the right track.
Becuase of the whingey public, the fuel industry is somewhat regulated in Australia. As such, the 'oil companies' (for want of a better term) are required to set their prices to an international crude oil price benchmark, whether it be from Saudi Aramco, New York Mercantile Exchange or Singapore, among others. Singapore is nearly always the most expensive of the lot and that's the price the companies set their pump prices from. They can buy oil whenever they like from wherever they like for whatever they like, but the petrol price has to be in direct reference from an international benchmark.
But why are they always about 3 weeks behind?
Because the oil price per barrel is oil price futures.

My other half is currently paying about $1.98 USD per gallon which oddly enough is about 20-30 cents less a gallon than she was paying 3 years ago. I really don't care what anyone says we get right royally bent over and f***ed in this country. However I would still rather be paying our prices than what my Grandmother pays in Scotland.

The only way we lose in fuel prices is the exorbidant ~40cpl exise on every litre.

But there are options, there's an awesome fuel readily available from most servo's where you don't need to pay any excise! It's half the price of petrol! Yes, it's LPG!

Traffic is getting worse and worse, specially in the past 1.5 years. Drove to work for 2.25 years and got steadily worse....:(

Stupid mexicans moving up here.

mexicans like heardy i bet

This, and the fact that I hate public transport is why I cycle in.

That was 9:30 this morning. I doubt traffic this afternoon would still be affected?

it was still on its side at 1pm, on a tow truck at 2pm. lights still out.

Indro was f***ing bizarrely busy tonight as well. I think it was everyone going late night shopping so they could start exporting their ruddbux out of the country as fast as possible to help the demise of our society.

This, and the fact that I hate public transport is why I cycle in.

can of worms

Petrol prices in UK are nearly double what they are here, hence they don't all drive around in cars with 4 litre engines.

petrol should be $2. we have got it very good.

I wonder if GM will get the Volt on the road before they go broke?

I paid $1.85/gallon the other day ... boy was I mad.

Stinky think yourself lucky you weren't there 12 months ago where almost every state was paying the best part of $4 a gallon or more.

edit: mum's the word

last edited by XandraX at 07:50:00 24/Apr/09

Here in Northern California it's averaging about 2.20 per gallon. Cal is one of the more expensive states fuel-wise.

I can still fill me car up for less than $40 on premium unleaded! U-S-A U-S-A, etc.. :D

greazy, that was the cement mixer. Guy rolled and took out the light box as well as electricity. I would have thought it would have been cleared by peak hour this afternoon

yer, we went past it about 1:30, crane was just lifting it back up

I took Montague Rd instead of Peel St to get onto the William Jolly this arvo, so I only had to wait about 2 minutes to get through the lights. I'm surprised more people don't know about that shortcut...shhhhhh.

sshhhhhhh!!!!!

i came back this way from the gym at milton to work (on montague road)
saved me ages, coz the coppas werent letting much traffic turn;

Mr Hardware I was told it is not possible to run a Gen3 (VX SS) on gas...is this correct?

I lost the address for Google.

Stupid mexicans moving up here.

Read an article this morning that said more people are moving to Melbourne than any other city (about double that of Sydney & Bris population increase rates).

But on the petrol things, you guys are getting f***ed! I paid about $1.05 this week and that doesn't include the QLD governments 8c/L discount.

whether it's *feasible* is just as much of an issue as whether it's possible, particularly when you drive vehicles that are under warranty

Petrol prices in UK are nearly double what they are here, hence they don't all drive around in cars with 4 litre engines.

It's also tiny. You can drive coast to coast and back again with less than half a tank of gass.

Tell us where you think the crude oil comes from eu4ia

Why the hell are we paying so much for our petrol? The price of crude oil is a third of what it peaked at and yet we're still paying more than two thirds of what we did at that point - and the AUD is stronger now against the USD than back then.

IMO, the cost resources such as electricity, fuel, etc should be increased. It might stop:

* Fat c***s driving 150m down the road to put mail in the post box.
* Dick heads who sit in traffic every day driving into the city.

People spend more buying bottle water, if you find petrol expensive now you're probably under the poverty line or you're just a massive dick head.

Mr Hardware I was told it is not possible to run a Gen3 (VX SS) on gas...is this correct?

Yes and no. There are three types of Gas Conversion you can get. Mixer-ring stle, Sequential Vapour Injection and Liquid Port Injection. The rough costs of these three are $2500, $4000 and $5000 respectively. Just remember you get a $2000 rebate from the govt.
I'd doubt the Gen3 would go very well with the old mixer-ring style (think central point injection, the LPG comes from the tank as a liquid, gets converted to gas by the gas converter, then gets fed into your throttle body like air). Restrictive and old-tech. Quoted consumption is usually between 20 and 25% worse than petrol consumption. Power loss is about 10%, Torque gain is about 5%
Then there's SVI. I was chatting to a B&W Business Class cabbie one night at the servo where he was filling up his WK Statesman Gen3 cab with SVI LPG - i asked him about it and he said that it's only gets about 5% worse economy than the Ford 4L motors. He was quoting figures of about 18-19L/100klms of pure city driving, air con always on, never turned off etc which i thought was pretty damn good for a 5.7L V8 in a 2000kg car. Still utilises a gas converter but has actual injectors for each cylinder. Quoted consumption is 10-15% worse than a petrol car. Power loss is pretty much nil, torque gain is about 5%.
And also LPI. Relatively new technology to australia but has been overseas for years, due to some lame patent issue. Doesn't require a gas converter and nearly always increses power and torque by about 5%. The Gen3 motors love it. Only tradeoff is $5000 is a bit steep.

Quick maths time: say you have a Gen3 V8 which does an average of 13L/100klms and you travel 20,000k per year. Lets say petrol is $1.10 and LPG is 55c. That would be a year's fuel cost of $2860. If you had SVI LPG, your consumption would be then about, say, 14.5L/100klms. At 20,000k per year that's a years fuelling cost of $1595. That's over $100 a month you're saving on fuel, and the payback period would be less than two years, and just remember your car would be worth more with the LPG on it too.

Could anyone tell me why fuel prices fluctuate throughout the week, peaking on a Thursday? It seems that Mon-Wed it is the cheapest, then on Thursday it peaks, almost without fail.

its called price gouging.

Why the hell are we paying so much for our petrol? The price of crude oil is a third of what it peaked at and yet we're still paying more than two thirds of what we did at that point - and the AUD is stronger now against the USD than back then.

You run your car on crude oil?

Why the hell are we paying so much for our petrol?

The ACCC pretty much sets and regulates how much margin petrol companies and stations can make on petrol. If it costs less but we still pay more, theres only one other reason behind it: kruddler needs to pay for your krudd bux somehow.

petrol should be $2. we have got it very good.

but waddabout the free market!? won't that make it cry?

Tell us where you think the crude oil comes from eu4ia

teehee.

i really don't get why people reckon feul should be more expensive... so the more wealthy people can use it all up first or something?

why don't they just means-test fuel prices!?!!?

they should give out fuel ration tickets to ensure equitable access for everyone.

Mr Hardware, interesting, thanks for the reply. I guess now I usually ride my bike to work I would do under 10,000km a year, so probably not worth it. Not a bad deal at all though when you consider an extra 5% torque and power on top of the fuel savings.

if you find petrol expensive now you're probably under the poverty line or you're just a massive dick head.

Made me lol - +1 for the latter.

I don't understand why everyone wants to get the ACCC to stick it's nose in. Petrol is like any other commercial product, companies will compete - when the price is too high some bargain petrol company will come in and start selling cheap to get into the market. I don't think it needs to be regulated.

The ACCC doesn't come into my business and tell me how much I should sell engineering services for - I don't think petrol should really be any different. If the margin became so huge, more people would start independent petrol companies at reduced margins, and the industry would correct just like any other industry.

I tried to ride to work for a while but I found it to be far more expensive. Food costs more than petrol for a 52km return trip.

EDIT: if you want to complain about profit margins and taxes, complain about beer instead...

I cbf reading the whole thread, but from what I've read/watched/heard, the price of fuel has also risin due to singapore cutting back on the amount of fuel they produce and pass through their ports. Due to the cut back of fuel passing through, this sends the price of our fuel up because all our fuel comes through singapore.

I tried to ride to work for a while but I found it to be far more expensive. Food costs more than petrol for a 52km return trip.

I call bulls***. Not that I would ride to work myself if it was that far....but I seriously doubt it would cost more to ride than drive due to cost of food vs petrol....unless you're driving a scooter and eating 14 year old virgins from Inala (rare and expensive...I'd imagine).

What extra food were you eating each day to ride 52km?

I tried to ride to work for a while but I found it to be far more expensive. Food costs more than petrol for a 52km return trip.

What are you eating? Truffle chocolate? You'd need maybe 5 dollars to pay for a healthy morning and afternoon tea. A couple of wheetbix for breakfast and trail mix in the afternoon.

Fair enough - my memory must be dodgy on the exchange rates at the time.

But still:

$150 USD / barrel = $166 AUD (@ 0.9 USD to 1 AUD)
$50 USD / barrel = $71 AUD (@ 0.7 USD to 1 AUD)

So the price of crude in AUD has more than halved?

Highest petrol prices went was what, $1.55 per litre? Today I paid $1.14.

So the petrol price per litre has come a quarter while crude has come down half. Are my calculations wrong?

Probably already been said but I'm a little too hung over to have noticed :)

I had the same thought a while back on another forum, this was the reply:

Oil is priced in USD but the US isn't a net exporter of oil so it doesn't make much difference, i.e. as the USD's value falls the USD price per barrel goes up to compensate. Ultimately OPEC control the price at the supply side, and they'll keep it as high as they think the market will bear.

last edited by Syco at 15:14:25 24/Apr/09

What extra food were you eating each day to ride 52km?

Depending on what other physical activity he did, and the pace of the ride, I can see 52km per day leading to twice the normally required caloric intake.

What are you eating? Truffle chocolate? You'd need maybe 5 dollars to pay for a healthy morning and afternoon tea. A couple of wheetbix for breakfast and trail mix in the afternoon.

Again, depending on the above things you'd need quite a lot of food to compensate for that distance. How much does it cost people to drive 52km in two trips? ~$15?

A 26km bike ride for me takes around an hour (my last trip I was only going 20km/hour), in which time I personally would burn around 800 calories (highly dependent on the intensity of the ride and the physical characteristics of the rider). If that was my morning trip, doing the same thing again in the afternoon would require much more effort and work my body much harder, and I would expect to burn at least 50% more calories on the trip home. That's going to be around 2000 calories, which is what an "average" person would require in a whole day, which I assume is more than $15 worth.

How does 2000 calories cost more than 15 bucks? You're also ignoring running costs of the vehicle aside from petrol - its probably more like 25/day.

You're also ignoring running costs of the vehicle aside from petrol - its probably more like 25/day.

Fair enough - I don't really know costs of cars (I re-fuel every 2 - 3 weeks, and never drive a regular distance on a regular basis).

How does 2000 calories cost more than 15 bucks?

Sorry, when I say calories, I'm refering to kilocalories (which seems to be a common, confusing abbreviation). According to the .au maccas site, a Big Mac has 480 calories (kcal)... maybe you're thinking of kilojoules, which is roughly 4 times the caloric amount, in which case 2000kJ would be fairly cheap.

Billy - not saying you're incorrect...but why does it require 50% more energy to do the same work in the afternoon?

Because the earth is upside down

According some dodgy website: http://motormouth.com.au/myvehicle/calcpage.aspx

Driving 52km is between $233.80 and $279.31 per month. This excludes all other travel and maintenance costs.

8-9 dollars a day of additional food is a lot of food. Especially if you're talking about bringing it in yourself (wheatbix, trailmix, fruit).

That being said, I'm pretty impressed at anybody who rides 52km a day. 26 is enough for me.


last edited by typo at 16:10:58 24/Apr/09

I don't really know costs of cars (I re-fuel every 2 - 3 weeks, and never drive a regular distance on a regular basis).

A good ready reckoner is for every dollar you put in the fuel tank, you'll also end up spending another dollar on rego, insurance, tyres and mechanical. Depreciation/captial loss is entirely separate.

Ultimately OPEC control the price at the supply side, and they'll keep it as high as they think the market will bear.

Contrary to popular misconception, OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) only accounts for about 40% of the world's oil production.

Contrary to popular misconception, OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) only accounts for about 40% of the world's oil production.

Ahh, but aren't 90% of country's a signatory and thus have to follow their pricing guides? I wasn't trying to say they sold 90% of the oil from their own back yard.

Edit: I'm not actually sure if most first world country's are a signatory, I'm actually asking :)

last edited by Syco at 19:22:24 24/Apr/09

Cereal is the worst breakfast item ever. It's more suited as a dinner. Flipping your breakfast and dinner around is probably the healthiest thing you can do.

Shutup typo.

Go back to eating my s***, greazy.

Ahh, but aren't 90% of country's a signatory and thus have to follow their pricing guides? I wasn't trying to say they sold 90% of the oil from their own back yard.

Its a cartel, not the UN.

Round trip from me when I ride is 64km. It definitely costs more to ride to work than taking public transport - on top of the extra 2100kcal for me, there's also consumable parts to consider.

Bacon & Eggs ftw!