Service station pricing under fire
A new unmanned service station in Timaru has already been criticised by the community for its pricing.
The fuel site in Washdyke, which opened this week, has been the subject of criticism for matching its local competitors with its $2.32 per litre rate for 91 unleaded fuel.
A call to boycott the Mobil site at Washdyke was made on social media on Thursday night, and for at least an hour late yesterday morning no motorists were seen near the new fuel pumps.
Yesterday afternoon at 4pm, the new station’s price had fallen behind at least six other fuel retailers in Timaru.
The lowest priced fuel, according to app Gaspy, being retailed in Timaru was $2.28 per litre at Z on Stafford St and Caltex King St, while the highest was $2.33 at Z Caroline Bay. Four of the other 13 service stations in the area were retailing fuel at $2.31 per litre.
At the same time consumers were paying $2.10 when filling up 91 petrol at the unmanned Allied Glenavy. Fuel at RDP in Waimate, about 40 kilometres south of Timaru, was retailing at $2.19 while in other parts of the South Island fuel was as low as $2.06 in Christchurch, $2.15 in Dunedin and $2.10 in Invercargill.
A Z spokesperson told Stuff working out the cost consumers pay at the pump was made up of four parts – what the company pays, Government taxes and levies, operational costs and net profit.
‘‘We buy crude oil as well as refined petrol and diesel. The amount we pay is made up of the cost of petrol and diesel on the international market and the cost to ship fuel to New Zealand.
‘‘Like the rest of the world, we buy fuel in United States dollars (USD). So the price we actually pay for each barrel of oil also depends on how strong the New Zealand dollar (NZD) is against the USD.’’
The spokesperson said a good chunk of the cost of each litre of fuel consumers buy is made up of Government taxes and levies.
‘‘This includes GST, excise tax, ACC and emissions trading levies for petrol, and monitoring and emissions trading levies for diesel.
‘‘At the moment, almost 70 cents per litre is collected by the Government in fixed excise (not including the 10 cents per litre Auckland Regional Fuel tax). In addition to the emissions trading levy for petrol, a GST of 15 per cent is also collected on the overall price of fuel.’’
Operating costs include staff wages, the services and facilities Z used to bring fuel to you including shipping, storage tanks and trucks, electricity, credit card fees and all the other things Z needs to run their business, the spokesperson said.
‘‘After we’ve paid for fuel, taxes and levies and accounted for our operating costs, we earn a net profit of about 3-6 cents per litre across our network.
‘‘You don’t just have to take our word for it – we’re a publicly listed company so it’s easy to find out how much money we are making by visiting our investor centre.’’
The Commerce Commission said to initiate any inquiry, it will have to consider complaints according to its enforcement criteria.
‘‘The commission uses enforcement criteria to assist it in its discretionary activities when making decisions on whether to open an investigation, and what enforcement action it will take at the end of an investigation,’’ a spokesperson said.
‘‘Cartel conduct is hard to detect because it is often conducted in secret. Therefore, we rely on information from those involved in a cartel, or who are aware of one, to be able to detect cartels.’’
The spokesperson said there are three ways to report information about cartels to the commission – by applying for immunity and cooperation, using its anonymous whistleblowing tool, or making a general report.
‘‘We assess every complaint we receive, but we are unable to investigate all of them,’’ the spokesperson said.
‘‘Our focus is to make sure New Zealand markets work well and consumers and businesses are confident when buying or selling goods and services. This means that we tend to be most interested in the issues causing widespread harm to New Zealanders. Complaints like yours help us to identify these issues.’’
The commission will release the final report in its market study into retail fuel on December 5.