Australia: Watchdog opens another oil front

THE competition watchdog plans to break big oil’s control of the nation’s fuel storage facilities in a bid to open up the retail petrol market to competition from imports.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel told The Australian there was insufficient storage at oil terminals to encourage the development of independent retailers, who could help keep prices lower by using cheaper imported refined petrol to compete with the oil majors.


Mr Samuel said there were few storage terminals in Australia not operated by the big four oil companies – Shell, Caltex, BP and Mobil – with only a handful of independent operators, such as Manildra, Trafigura and Gull.

He said more terminals and storage capacity were needed to encourage imports and to put more pressure on the existing Australian refiners to keep retail prices low.

“Retailers independent of the major oil companies need to be able to have the reassurance that supplies are available from companies other than the majors before they can break from the Australian refiners,” he said.

The Australian