ACCC waives fuel competition rules
Sydney (30 June)
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) will allow businesses to coordinate some fuel supply and pricing measures until 22 December, largely because of ongoing maritime disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Competing businesses can coordinate measures that help Australia respond to and recover from Iran war-related fuel supply issues, the ACCC said in a competition waiver on 30 June. Protected coordination measures can impact purchase price decisions – likely including fuel shipment bids – but not sales price decisions, according to the waiver.
The ACCC will approve non-government-led coordination meetings, oversee meeting participation lists, and approve coordination plans, the competition watchdog said. It also has the right to attend non-government-led coordination meetings.
The ACCC has allowed members of the Australian Institute of Petroleum (AIP) – including BP, Ampol, Mobil, and Viva Energy – to engage in limited coordination since late March, under an interim waiver.
“But [the waiver] does not extend to sharing commercially sensitive price information or any coordination, agreement or discussion in relation to the prices of fuel products,” the ACCC said on 20 March.
It primarily covers measures around information sharing, schedule coordination, and the use of Australia’s existing storage and refining capacity.
The ACCC’s expanded waiver comes one day before the Australian Government begins to wind back its fuel excise cut. The Government cut Australia’s fuel excise rate from A$0.53/litre to A$0.21/litre in early April. But it will increase the levy to A$0.37/litre on 1 July and A$0.53/litre on 1 August.
Retail diesel prices averaged A$1.80/litre across the country’s five largest cities on 24 June, up just A$0.035/litre from 20 February, before the US-Israeli war in Iran began, ACCC data show. Petrol prices averaged A$1.57/litre across the five cities that day, down from A$1.71/litre on 20 February.
Australian fuel prices have declined in recent weeks because of the Government’s excise cut and global oil price declines. Brent crude futures last traded at $74.28/barrel (A$107.86/barrel) on 30 June, up slightly from $71.76/barrel on 20 February, but down from a peak of $114.44/barrel on 4 May.
By Avinash Govind