It’s interesting to cast around and look at explanations for various issues, as they occur outside North America. We can always hope for something to miss the ‘spin factory’ and give a genuine insight. On gas pricing, there are some interesting bits coming out of Australia.
1/ Micro management - Petrol companies are reducing discounting periods as motorists become increasingly savvy about the timing of fluctuating fuel prices, motoring groups and petrol price monitors say.
Latest figures from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission show that fuel prices fell on Tuesdays and rose on Thursdays, and the price cycle - between the peaks and trough in prices - ranged between five to nine days.
Petrol giant Caltex said the discount cycle was a result of "intense competition in the petrol market" and was neither anti-competitive nor illegal.
2/ Macro management - Price rises followed this week's North Korean missile crisis, which spooked global markets and helped lift the price of crude oil to a record $US75.40 a barrel on the New York market.
As North Korea's spray of missiles either imploded on take-off or fell harmlessly to sea global speculators pushed the oil price up more than a dollar to a new record - $US75.40 ($101.39) a barrel on the New York market.
Analysts say about one-third of the current oil price reflects a "speculative bubble" that will one day deflate.
If petrol flows with the laws of economics, as the oil companies claim, then even the head of the International Monetary Fund, Rodrigo de Rato, has not been told. "An important amount of the price of oil today is not related to supply or demand," he said.
National Australia Bank's head of research, Peter Jolly, said any real link between North Korea's missiles and the world economy was "tenuous".
General manager of oil industry consultants FUELtrac Geoff Trotter said.
“Today's highest unleaded petrol price in Sydney was 145.9 cents a litre, and the lowest 129.9.
“But a jump in Singapore petrol prices, which lead the Australian market, could push unleaded fuel to 149 cents a litre in Sydney next week.
"There was a spike in the price of Singapore unleaded petrol this week - that will flow through to Australian wholesale prices next week," he said.
So you are being screwed by speculators, what’s new?
3 comments:
If you can't beat 'em, join em.
I think it is about time to cash in on the dollar's next big slide.
80 dollar oil by the end of the summer. The price may fall after that, but definitely going to hit $80 bucks before the autumn decline in prices. And that sets the stage for even higher prices in winter if the weather is really cold.
Yikes! Remember when oil was just $20 a barrel a few years ago!
The piss-off is that it because these guys are playing money games.
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