How do the oil companies get to OBVIOUSLY rip off the public and get away with it?

Well..being the obviously ultra right wing conservative that I am often portrayed to be :) I'd have to say......

Our Government seems idiologically committed to 'market forces' but those forces often don't work until companies are SHAMED into reacting to them.

Also, its not hard to have an 'understanding' among the oil companies which amounts to undocumented collusion over pricing cycles.

This is another aspect of 'Capitalism' as an economic force which demonstrates how it benefits very limited and selfish socio/economic interests, rather than, and at the expense of, the broarder community.

StD... we can organize a few 10-teams to shame an oil company office if you like....but you would have to participate yourself.

The price of petrol is in the hands of consumers. Floggers of any product will charge what the market will take.

All consumers have to do is stop buying!

Unfortunately, people who could do without their cars for getting to work, insist on driving one up along well served public transport routes every day of the week. Many of them drive big gas guzzlers.

We are ripped off by oil companies because we allow them to rip us off. People seem to have lost the ability to think and act for themselves, preferring to blame the government for their problems when the solution is in their own hands.

The debate goes on?
Why do people buy gas guzzling V8's and four wheel drives, then complain that the price of petrol is too much.
The hipocrites who fill up twice a week,kill the atmosphere and drive the kids to school are the same people that want the government or the oil companies to subsidise their unsustanable life styles.
The rational argument is to allow oil companies and the federal government to make as much profit from private car and four wheel drivers and allow tax breaks on oil prices for heavy transport road and rail operators.
This would reduce green house emmissions while supporting the use of public transport,and reducing the cost of shipping products to supermarkets,etc.

Filling up twice a week is a crime? can you think outside your own world and your own reality?
Some of us use far more fuel than that, just to go shopping this after all is a very big country.
Growing your food ,makeing your power are not fuel free endevors.
And your post takes the spotlight away from fuel price theft and neglect of duty by our goverment and the multi national fuel owners.
In time to come we will look back at the sloth like goverments refusal to truely investigate new fuels as what it is betrayal.

Quote Belly: "And your post takes the spotlight away from fuel price theft and neglect of duty by our goverment and the multi national fuel owners."

Thankyou.

It blows my mind that the Government and the ACCC won't do anything about it...Corruption of the highest order?

Wow. Found something I agree with Leigh on. How about that.

I went past a service station in one suburb .Petrol 108 cents a litre.So thought ,do the right thing get it from your local service station. I pulled up only to be confronted with 118 cents a litre!! When I inquired about the huge difference I was told petrol prices vary from suburb to suburb depends on the oil company that runs it.
It seems it is regulated like our big super markets,some suburbs dearer than others .
Seemed to me the service station people use their own priceing.as I had friends who had a service station ,and every morning he would go check on other servo prices and then adjust his prices accordingly! Be it same or just below,
So don't tell me they, the service station owners, have nothing to do with the priceing

Service station owners certainly have some say in where the prices are set, but few will set them below the cost of purchase (or if they do, they wont for very long - basic rule of being in business is to make money). So yes, servo owners are just as likely to jump on the bandwagon if it is available to them. However, it is well publicised that there is lucky to be 1c/litre profit in petrol retailing, and from what I have seen as an accountant, this is true. Retailers tend to make their money off the other services that they have, be it a garage, meals, store, videos etc.

So given that retailers at the end of the day make little money out of their fuel, that leaves the oil companies to make most of the profits. Given that we are an anti-regulation nation (what a rhyme!!), what are we to do about it? Well to start with, use as little fuel as possible, support your independent retailers as often as you can, buy cars that are fuel efficient (many small diesel cars will go more than 1000km to a tank), use public transport if it is available to you (there is none where I live, so I've not much choice but to drive). There are lots of little things we can do to reduce the impact. If we start to use less fuel, we can hope that the fuel companies will start to compete harder for their market, and thus lower prices to reasonable levels (based of course on what they can buy it for).

My Grandfather told me how they stopped rip off prices in Melbourne during [ or was it after ? ] the war. Everybody put only the minimum amount of petrol that they needed - from different stations, any day of the week. Sounds simple, dont it. Now because petrol is like fruit and veg, it CANNOT BE STORED FOREVER.It gets contaminated. In other words, the refinery has to keep up a continuous flow from plant - to storage - to stations - to YOU. What happened was that because everyone was buying the minimum of fuel from all stations, the law of maths applied. There came a day when more stations were out of fuel than could be supplied AND then the day when no stations needed any fuel. You get it yet ?.
The percentage of stations that ran out, increased while another lot didn't sell much and didn't need any on delivery days. IT WORKED!!

Real ezy...jump on yer push bike, save the planet, lose some lard, and maybe the oil barons will get the message...?

When the last barrel of oil is financially unobtainable, when the last ever ounce of gasoline is auctioned off on E-Bay, then and maybe then we will see the folly of it all. Until that happens, human greed such as it is will control the markets.

Some good suggestions about personal behaviour to alleviate high fuel prices, but the principal reason for high fuel prices is not so much the price of oil, rather it is the price of refined products. There has been a great demand for petrol and other fuels, but no corresponding spending on greater refining capacity. There has been a lot of NIMBY attitudes to new refineries in principally the US, but also throughout the developed world. Those companies that own refineries have been making extraordinary profits. $50 billion in the case of Mobil & Shell.
All it will take is another Hurricane Katrinna and we will see $2 litre fuel.
It is worth mentioning the Flex engine that is made in Australia by Holden and exported around the world, principally to South America. It runs on ethanol from 0% to 90% and should be marketed in Australia as well. Why it isn't is a great curiosity that I haven't seen answered.