2008-09 the most volatile year for petrol: ACCC
The competition watchdog says Australian petrol prices have been much more stable in 2009 than the wild swings last year.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's second report into retail petrol prices found the average pump price for the 2008-09 financial year was $1.27 per litre.
However, while prices were stable this calendar year, the 2008-09 financial year was the most volatile on record, with prices hitting highs of over $1.60 per litre in July 2008 before dropping to around $1.00 a litre in late 2008.
After recovering part of that steep drop in January and February, with rises of about 20 cents per litre, the report found that average prices had remained fairly stable around the $1.20 a litre level.
ACCC commissioner Joe Dimasi says Australian consumers can thank rises in the Australian dollar, which have parallelled oil price rises, for the stability in fuel prices.
"If the Australian dollar was still at the same level as it was in March this year, we would be paying about another 28 cents a litre in the price of our petrol, so we would be looking at prices closer to $1.50 [a litre]."
Petrol losses
In a finding that may surprise many motorists, the ACCC says fuel companies lost around $480 million from selling petrol last year.
But it also notes this is an unusual result, with profits averaging 3.1 cents per litre over the last seven years.
Mr Dimasi says the three major oil refiners do lead the weekly price cycle upwards before the weekend.
"There is coordinated conduct happening between the three majors, this is Mobil, Caltex and BP," he told ABC News.
"Now we're not saying that that's collusion, what we're saying there is that the entrenched pattern of behaviour that exists between those companies, plus the visibility of prices that they have on a website that they use means that they can increase the price with greater certainty, that they know they won't undercut each other, and that is an issue we've raised as an issue of concern for us."
However, the ACCC has dispelled a popular perception that petrol prices rise even more steeply before long weekends.
"There is a price rise in public holidays where they occur over the weekend, but those rises are no bigger or smaller than the normal price cycle rises, so the idea that prices increase more on public holidays than they do on other weekends is not correct," Mr Dimasi said.
But he is still encouraging motorists to avoid the weekend price rise during the Christmas long weekend that starts next Friday, by filling up on Tuesday or Wednesday.