ACAPMA in the Media
This page contains articles in which ACAPMA is mentioned. While we do our best keeping up with the clippings is difficult. If you see ACAPMA in your local paper please let us know by clicking here.
For Nic’s column in C & I Magazine click here.
To visit the whole Historic Web News File click here.
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Petrol retailers deny price gouging in south-east Qld
By Katherine Spackman Updated Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:05pm AEDT
The body representing fuel distributors and retailers says south-east Queensland motorists are not being gouged at the petrol pump.
The RACQ says the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) should investigate the industry after Wednesday's fuel price in Brisbane was about six cents-a-litre more than most other capital cities.
But Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACPMA) spokesman Nic Moulis says the ACCC is already monitoring the industry.
"The latest report shows again [there] is no price gouging - the industry's making a fair return for its investment," he said.
"This idea [of] price gouging really just inflames customers' opinion of businesses who are trying to do their best for the community.
"The RACQ, if they look at specific days, there's always going to be a price difference between sites in Brisbane as well as Sydney and others on a specific day.
"Reports commissioned by the government continually show in the long-term the price of fuel has always stayed relatively consistent across the country."
Extracted in full from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/19/2824883.htm
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RACQ wants an investigation into petrol prices
By Katherine Spackman Updated Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:14pm AEDT
The RACQ has renewed its call for the consumer watchdog to investigate claims of petrol 'price gouging' in south-east Queensland.
The cost of fuel in Brisbane yesterday was about six-cents-a-litre more than most other capital cities.
RACQ spokesman Gary Fites says Wednesday is supposed to be the cheapest day of the weekly cycle.
"We were finding that people were lucky in most parts of south-east Queensland to buy unleaded petrol at anything under a $1.25 yesterday," he said.
"For a lot of people that was eight-cents-a-litre more than they paid the previous week.
"Now more than ever is a good time for the petrol commissioner to emerge from the ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] and actually investigate what is going on here.
"Otherwise we can only conclude the ACCC is not interested with the sorts of prices and the challenges Brisbane and south-east Queensland motorists are facing at the pump."
Extracted in full from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/18/2823783.htm
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04/02/2010:
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
[ABC]1233 Breakfast, A story we’ve been following for some time here on 1233 Breakfast we heard again yesterday from Jill Hall the MP for Shortland, she was updating us after she spoke to the ACCC about concerns that were brought to us by Danny [listener] and we since talked to her about high petrol prices in the Hunter in general, Lake Macquarie in particular and how much reporting was happening out of this region to the ACCC and there petrol price monitoring. Here’s Jill Hall.
Jill Hall MP for Shortland [played from tape]:
At least one site in the Belmont, Cardiff, Warners Bay, Charlestown, Edgeworth, Swansea area is included in the survey. It’s not at all satisfactory. I had a lengthy conversation with the ACCC yesterday and I said I wanted the price difference investigated and the response was: well you know we need hard data.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
We’re continuing to pass that hard data from you onto Jill Hall. This story has caused a lot of reaction and has had national media coverage. The NRMA are looking into higher prices over the Australia Day long weekend and the retailers want to have their voice heard on this matter, Nic Moulis is from the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association, ACAPMA if you will, Nic good morning and welcome to 1233 Breakfast.
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Good morning Aaron.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
Can you define your organisation first of all please.
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Yeah look our organization is a national group that represents wholesale distributors and retailers across Australia.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
In other words its you, or your members, that are facing these allegations that somehow you’re charging the people of the Hunter more than what the people of Sydney or elsewhere are being charged. Now that is in many ways indisputable. I mean we can actually compare the prices on any given day. The question is why. Can you answer that?
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Why there’s a differential between maybe what would be called a city area like Sydney and a more regional area? Yeah look I can answer that. And there’s probably about four factors that are involved here. The most significant one is the volume sold. Studies have shown that in country areas sites sell probably half the volume of the city areas. So regional and rural sites sell less volume. It’s interesting to read in an ANZ Bank report recently that passenger vehicles located in the city actually drive more kilometres per year on average than those in regional centres and rural areas. Meaning city motorists are making more visits to service stations. And if your selling half the fuel you are going to need to make a higher return, make a higher margin to get the same return as a city site.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
OK that’s point one. Point two?
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Point two is the non fuel contribution to covering your operational costs. Things like convenience stores, mechanical workshops…
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
In other words how much cola I buy when I buy my beer?
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Exactly right.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
My…my petrol sorry I have beer on the brain this morning…my petrol.
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Yeah how much margin is made when yes you buy your bread milk coca cola any of those products and what we see here is that ah once again in urban areas in city areas the contribution that these make towards the operating costs are much higher. Therefore you can when making your pricing decision on fuel change how you price your fuel.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
OK Nic you’ve made only two of the four points if you’d be so kind I’ve got about three minutes of news headlines that I need to bring to people at half past seven. I do want to give you ample opportunity to make all of your points so you can bare with me for just ah a couple of more minutes we will go to the news headlines and then we’ll return and hear the further explanations from Nic Moulis from the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
[carried on after the news]…but this morning we’re hearing from the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association about all of the accusations that have been flying around about petrol prices here in the Hunter. They wish to give us an explanation as to why we are paying up to, the official numbers are apparently 6 or 7 cents but on average a bad day can be up to 20 cents more for a litre of standard unleaded petrol than they are in some parts of Sydney. Nic Moulis said it is a four part reason. He outlined the first two before the news and they included the issues of volume in Sydney, or in capital cities, there are more people and they’re driving more kilometres. That equals exponentially more volume than regional areas, is the assertion. Then add ons, I think that’s my word not his, but the extras purchased when you go to a service station that subsidise the discounted petrol that is apparently more in Sydney than it is here. There are two further explanations Nic Moulis has patiently waited with us. Thank you Nic. What are they please?
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Thanks Aaron and a great recap there. The other one would be distance from a terminal or refinery, therefore the distribution costs. That being trucking, or in Newcastle’s position pipeline costs to get the fuel up in the pipeline to the terminals at Hamilton there and whether that needs to be stored in a depot as an interim or double handled on the way to the service station.
And then the fourth which, to a lesser extent, as shown in reports, would be the number of service stations in a given market and the population of that market.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
All of those make perfect sense to me. They seem to be rational arguments. But here’s the kicker. We do a regular price watch here every morning here on the show and ah this morning its at Warabrook at 111.9 and at Scone it’s 20 cents dearer. Now they are quite different situations all of the things that you applied Newcastle is much bigger than Scone ecetera ecetera. But Lake Macquarie actually has more people than Newcastle does as a CBD and yet consistently people in Lake Macquarie and to a lesser degree Port Stephens and Maitland are paying more than Newcastle residents are so. I can buy the Sydney Newcastle argument but I can’t buy the Newcastle Lake Macquarie argument.
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Look the concept of pricing at a site is quite complex. And each individual owner has to go through a whole series of questions of themselves when they go to price. It is, look I can’t comment on individual people in individual areas, what I can do is give you a bit of a look at what the industry has looked like over the last twelve months, which has come out of some reporting from ah the ACCC which was released in December. If you look at the overall industry over the last financial year, on the sale of unleaded petrol, the industry made a loss of about $480 million. But lets be fair and look at it over a slightly longer average. Over the last seven years the average fuel sale is about 35Lts. Last year the average price of fuel over twelve months was about $1.27. Which means every timer one of your listeners goes to a service station he’s paying about $44.49 for unleaded petrol. If we look at that the government collected $17.40 in taxes and excise ok. The nett profit on average over those last seven years made by the service station operator was $0.14. So were not, I mean yes there can be price differentials and on some days one site can be more expensive than the another and I don’t wanna go into specific moments because I can’t comment on individual operators.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
Let me ask you this then Nic. Does anybody in your organisation have anything to fear from more service stations reporting to the ACCC out of our listening area?
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
Look the fact is we have, we’re happy that people understand our price because we’re one of the only businesses that has a huge price board sitting out the front of our service station so the public, like Danny who called in the other day, has the opportunity to look at our price, and in fact use probably the greatest weapon a consumer has which is choice.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
Yeah
Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA
And what Miss Hall’s doing, even though it doesn’t actually go into the complexities of pricing. Shes using a very simple approach that says here’s the price board, tell me what you’re seeing. And those prices go, I can tell you today they go into all manner of databases both at government level and at private level.
Radio Presenter Aaron Kearney:
All right and we have actually heard that from one or two other members ah Nic Moulis you have mounted your case aggressively this morning, we’re happy to have given you the opportunity to do so in the interest of getting all the data in. That’s Nic Moulis there from the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association on why you’re paying more in the Hunter.
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Posted Thu Feb 4, 2010 3:06pm AEDT
A national petrol retailers' group has hit back at claims that Hunter motorists are being unfairly overcharged for petrol.
Residents in East Lake Macquarie say at times they are paying up to 20 cents a litre more for petrol than Sydney motorists and there are calls for increased monitoring of prices.
Nick Moulis from the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association says regional outlets cannot always match Sydney prices.
He says their costs are higher and they sell less fuel and groceries.
"There's probably about four factors involved, the most significant one is the volume sold, studies have shown that in country areas sites sell probably half the volume of city areas," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/04/2810366.htm
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BY JULIEANNE STRACHAN, STATE POLITICAL REPORTER, 03 Feb, 2010 04:00 AM
THE NRMA has called for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate petrol prices in the Hunter over the Australia Day long weekend.
The motoring body says Hunter motorists paid eight to nine cents more per litre of petrol than their Sydney counterparts over the holiday weekend.
NRMA economist Wal Setkiewicz said Newcastle had become the second most expensive region in NSW that weekend, with dearer fuel only at Bega.
The NRMA was preparing information to make a complaint to the pricing watchdog.
Hunter-based NRMA director Kyle Loades said the motoring body would push for the ACCC to investigate the long weekend discrepancy.
"Hunter people are sick and tired of paying more than they should at the bowser," he said.
"The NRMA indicative research has shown there was this difference. And there is no justifiable reason in our opinion that this should be the case."
NRMA research showed the price in Newcastle on the long weekend was about $1.35 a litre on average.
Mr Setkiewicz said Newcastle prices were usually three to four cents more per litre on average than Sydney and transport costs would account for two of those cents.
He said prices had returned to normal on Wednesday, January 27.
"And we did not see the same happen again the next weekend," he said.
ACCC fuel commissioner Joe Dimasi said the authority would welcome any information the NRMA had.
But he said previous research had shown the perceived rise in public holiday petrol prices was more mythology than fact.
"It's something we have looked at very closely," he said.
"We looked at every public holiday long weekend for the last five years and the price jumps were no higher or lower than any other weekend."
Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association general manager Nic Moulis said the idea that prices went up for long weekends was flawed.
"People say that it goes up on holiday periods but it may be just that people focus on filling up their cars at that time and it's a perception rather than a reality," he said.
Mr Dimasi said the ACCC monitored more 150 service stations in greater Newcastle.
He said the ACCC also monitored the Hunter Region as a whole, but was unable to include every town
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2/2/10 By JULIEANNE STRACHAN
PETROL retailers have hit back at suggestions they have been gouging Hunter motorists, after an MP said consumers in east Lake Macquarie were consistently paying more.
Federal Shortland MP Jill Hall told ABC radio yesterday that none of the petrol stations in east Lake Macquarie were monitored under the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's petrol-pricing program.
Ms Hall said the pricing discrepancy was costing drivers on average 5.4 cents a litre more.
But the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association said the association Ms Hall was drawing was too simplistic.
General manager Nic Moulis said a lot of different factors had to be taken into account.
"On the average tank of fuel which is 30 to 35 litres the operator of the service station would make a net profit of about 14 cents," he said.
"On the average tank of fuel which is 30 to 35 litres the operator of the service station would make a net profit of about 14 cents," he said.
"The Government takes $17.40 in taxes, which is about 50 cents per litre. That's excise and GST.
"In relation to Jill Hall's comments, we would say there is a lot more that goes into the pricing decisions."
Mr Moulis said population density, and the costs of operating service stations, could affect prices.
Mr Moulis said population density, and the costs of operating service stations, could affect prices.
"The volume of petrol a service station would sell on one side of the lake may be different to the other side due to population density," he said.
"What is similar is the cost of operation.
"The return per litre may be smaller on one side.
"To say 'they are not being monitored' [as the reason] is . . . not something that I believe would be correct."
The Newcastle Herald
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Monday, 01 February 2010 11:59
Lease arrangements have been finalised for a site to house a temporary fuel outlet for Kinglake. The site is at 29 Whittlesea-Kinglake Road, opposite the National Park Hotel, and fuel should be available from here within weeks.
Murrindindi Shire Council and VBRRA are also continuing to work closely with the two former fuel operators to rebuild a permanent outlet by the middle of this year.
Provision of a short term fuel facility is a priority for both VBRRA and the Council. We understand how important this is for local residents and are working to balance this urgency with the critical regulatory and safety standards required
http://www.kinglakerangesnews.com.au/index.php/the-news/community-groups/474-kinglake-fuel-update
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6 January 2010
The Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA) believe that calls to get trucks off the road, whilst clearly an emotional response to recent tragedies, fails to recognises the facts of the situation.
“The loss of a life is tragic and an emotional response to this is understandable. We should however allow all the investigations to be completed and the authorities to make the findings public,” ACAPMA General Manager Nic Moulis said. “Governments can then make positive decisions based on the facts.”
The Facts are, that statistics from the NSW RTA, show that in 2009 compared to the calendar year 2008,
· fatalities on major highway routes in NSW are down 9%.
· fatalities on freeways and motorways constituted 2% of deaths on NSW roads in 2009.
· fatalities on other roads - as classified by the NSW RTA – are up 26%.
“These statistics show that in NSW better roads have reduced fatalities,” Mr Moulis said.
“ACAPMA would urge Government’s at all levels to continue improving our roads.”
Even though the freight task in forever increasing in Australia, in NSW fatal accidents involving articulated trucks - like those carrying dangerous goods long distances - are down 23%. This is in direct opposition to the fact that fatal accidents involving cars are up 14%.
“Truck drivers, and especially dangerous goods drivers, are some of the most highly trained motorists on our roads,” Mr Moulis said.
“To hold a multi-combination truck licence, a driver must sit three practical assessments over a period of three years. To carry a dangerous goods load you must have further qualifications based on assessments and medical checks every three years.”
Recent Chain of Responsibility legislation clearly places accountability for any breaches of traffic or transport laws squarely at the feet of, not only the driver, but also all levels of management within the driver’s employer and can be extended to include suppliers who influence driver behavior.
“These laws combine to ensure that not only are truck drivers highly skilled, but that their employers and suppliers are motivated to ensure that they drive responsibly at all times,” concluded Mr Moulis.
“Road transport is imperative to the productivity of Australia. A commitment to the continual improvement of our nation’s roads, the professionalism of truck drivers and recognition of the facts, is required to make our roads safer.”
ENDS
For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Nic Moulis, General Manager, on 1300 160 270 or email nicm@acapma.com.au
For the pdf of this Media Release on ACAPMA letterhead please click here
NSW RTA source document RTA Monthly Bulletin of Preliminary Crash Data for December 2009
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18 Dec 09 by Shaun Turton
KINGLAKE Ranges residents are running out of petrol and patience with the area’s fuel supply still not replaced 10 months after February’s fires.
But a local rebuilding committee has opted away from a short-term fix, deeming residents had gotten used to the absence of a local petrol station.
As well as the “embarrassment” of having to help stranded travellers, residents say the lack of a fuel supply is leading to dangerous situations with people stockpiling petrol at home and carrying it in jerry cans in their cars.
Petrol stations in Kinglake and Pheasant Creek were destroyed on Black Saturday.
The Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority recently took over responsibility for delivering a temporary fuel supply from the Murrindindi Shire.
But the Murrindindi Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Committee - comprising State Government, VBRRA and Murrindindi Council representatives - decided at a recent meeting not to establish a council-operated fuel supply in the short term in Pheasant Creek.
The committee decided it would be “more prudent” to re-establish an existing business at Kinglake because of the potential high cost of setting up at a new site and anecdotal evidence suggesting the local community had somewhat adjusted to the temporary absence of a fuel outlet.
VBRRA spokeswoman Melissa Arch said a preferred site for a temporary supplier had been agreed by WorkSafe and the council. Ms Arch was unable to give a timeline, but said the authority still had to get permission to use the site, gain the support of nearby residents and decide who will sell the fuel.
Nic Moulis, general manager of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association, said he had been helping VBRRA “speed up” the delivery of a fuel supply, and been in talks with fuel supply installation contractors.
Resident Kathy Stewart said the community and tourists were extremely frustrated by the wait.
“I might be ignorant but I don’t think it’s that hard,” Ms Stewart said. “I don’t think it’s an impossible issue to solve quickly.”
She said people were also worried about fuel shortage for generators during the bushfire season.
Extracted in full from: http://leader-news.whereilive.com.au/news/story/committee-rejects-kinglake-petrol-quick-fix/
As the story indicates, ACAPMA has been working with Victorian Bushfire Relief and Recovery Agency (VBRRA) and local residents - such as our own Industrial Relations Advisor Julie Hansen - to assist in the delivery of a reliable fuel source.
After being approached by VBRRA on possible solutions to this community problem Nic Moulis, General Manager ACAPMA advised that a community run stand alone tank, bowser, card reader solution would provide relieve and fuel for generators while longer term commercial/council options are investigated. This community based refueling service would help residents with future bushfire fighting efforts, including fuel for power generators and water pumps.
ACAPMA teamed up with local fuel distributors such as Gordon Simpson - I & M Simpson and Son - installation contractors such as local Ben Dodd and willing equipment and technology providers Transponder Technologies (card reader) and Transtank (aboveground fuel storage tanks), who have assisted ACAMPA and VBRRA with an available solution to the communities’ immediate problem.
For more information on this and other projects please call 1300 160 270
ACAPMA 2009
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3 December 2009
The Hon. Dr Craig Emerson MP
Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy
Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs
Dear Dr Emerson,
RE: INVESTIGATION INTO POSSIBLE ANTI-COMPETITIVE PETROL PRICING PRACTICES
I am writing on behalf of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA) in response to your media release dated 2 December 2009 that asked the ACCC to investigate possible anti-competitive petrol pricing practices.
ACAPMA is a petrol convenience industry advocate representing 91 member businesses and the more than 2000 retail fuel sites (owned and operate directly or delivered to under contract). ACAPMA members are typically small-to-medium sized businesses employing 4500 people in regional Australia.
Collectively, they handle around 14 billion litres of petroleum products – 75% of which is delivered in rural and regional areas. ACAPMA membership comprises a group of substantial businesses with important roles in their communities.
ACAPMA members operate as one or both of the following categories:
1. Petroleum distributor – transporter and wholesaler, and involved in a diverse range of petroleum related activities, including operation of inland fuel storage depots, tanker fleets and aviation refuelling locations. Distributors supply a broad spectrum of businesses – primary producers, commercial and industrial, aviation, and mining – as well as fuel retailers.
2. Petrol convenience retailer – operates service stations, convenience stores, truck stops and related business, such as car washes. Petrol convenience retail outlets vary from the traditional service station with a mechanical workshop to large convenience stores offering a full range of related products. Petrol convenience retailers may operate under their own independent brand or that of a major oil company. They could be a large multisite operator controlling a network of locations or a small business with one or two service stations.
ACAPMA members are dismayed that the Australian Government has again called for a narrow investigation into the petroleum retail industry. A proposed examination aimed solely at the retail end of the industry value chain fails to recognise the importance of interactions at the refining, terminal, wholesale and distribution levels.
According to previous analysis by the ACCC, “…the most important factor [in] determining the retail price generally is the wholesale price at which the retailer purchased the fuel” (Report of the ACCC inquiry into the price of unleaded petrol December 2007).
ACAPMA agrees with the concerns raised by the ACCC in that report, namely:
· The industry is concentrated at the refining and wholesale levels.
· There is extensive trading in petrol at the wholesale level between the refiner–marketers.
· There are impediments to the large-scale importing of petrol by an independent.
This suggests that a closer look at the transparency and competition at the terminal gate is therefore most likely to reveal any anti-competitive practices.
The comments in your media release of 2 December imply that access to information about competitors pricing of fuel is the only determining factor when competitors set board prices. This is not the case.
Board price is based on a number of factors, including buying price, site throughput, traffic direction and intensity, stock level of fuel in underground tanks, day of the week, cost of finance and customer behaviour. From the customers’ perspective, there are also a number of factors embodied in questions such as: How much fuel do I have? Where am I travelling? Do I have time to purchase now? Do I have enough money? A fuel purchase is the end result of a complex dynamic process.
The ACCC (in its December 2008 report) stated that “… retail has active price competition”, finding that the level of profitability was not high in comparison to other industries. The ACCC estimated the average retail margin (in the five major cities in 2007–08) at 5.1cpl (including GST)!
Further, you call for an investigation into possible anti-competitive petrol pricing practices in the setting of retail petrol prices in the hiking phase of the weekly cycle. However, it is our view that the anticompetitive behaviour occurs at the bottom of the price cycle. What observers fail to appreciate is that, most days the retail price is below the cost of wholesale fuel. The public have difficulty accepting that a business would regularly sell product at a loss, but in reality, this has often been the case over the past ten years.
Below-cost selling is destroying independent operators. These “maverick or aggressive retailers” – as the ACCC describes them – are required to continually nip at the heels of major oil companies and supermarket retailers. These major retailers take the discount phase of the petrol price cycle to a price well below the wholesale price of fuel.
The recent responses by the ACCC to the proposed Caltex–Mobil merger and the second round of Coles 40-cpl discount offers, suggest a concern that there could be a material effect on competition in the retail market had these actions been approved. What seems to be a change in the ACCC’s assessment of the public benefit verses public detriment needs to be further clarified before any inquiry takes place.
ACAPMA would like to meet with you and your department to discuss these issues more fully before anyinquiry commences.
Nic Moulis
General Manager
ACAPMA 2009
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Caltex’s plan to purchase 302 Mobil service stations will not affect wholesale diesel prices for the time being due to the continued presence of other oil companies in market, FUELtrac says.
“It [the purchase] won’t affect the wholesale price [of diesel] because Mobil is claiming in the short term they will stay in the wholesale market,” FUELtrac General Manager Jeff Trotter Trotter tells ATN.
“Plus there are other large independents [in the wholesale market] plus other companies like BP and Shell.”
However, Trotter claims the retail side is likely to become almost completely controlled by Caltex should the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission approve the purchase because of Caltex’s relationship with retail giant Woolworths.
Although Caltex and Woolworths have denied the purchase will increase their share of the fuel retail market, Trotter claims it “is just a strategy we think, to get the deal through the ACCC”.
“Once it gets approval, we think over the next two years they [Caltex] will convert most of the outlets to Woolworths outlets,” he says.
“Strategically, Caltex may have purchased all these outlets in a block to stop them being sold to independents.”
However, Caltex says it is actually looking to battle Woolworths in the retail market.
“We compete with Woolworths at a retail level and we want to acquire these sites to strengthen our position in the retail market,” Caltex spokeswoman Georgie Wells says.
“Caltex has no intention to pass these service stations on to Woolworths – in fact the acquisition, if approved by the ACCC, will allow Caltex to better compete with Woolworths and other fuel companies,” says Georgie Wells.
Wells says the Mobil fuel rewards card will no longer be valid at the service stations and customers will need to join Caltex’s Star Card system in order to be eligible for fuel discounts at the sites in future.
The Australasian Convenience And Petroleum Marketers Association (ACAPMA) General Manager Nic Moulis, says this would be catastrophic for independently owned Mobil service stations.
"‘In some instances, fuel cards contribute up to 40% of total fuel sales volumes for independent operators', says Moulis.
"They are very important to Mobil distributors and retailers [and] the proposed shut down of the Mobil Card network will have dire consequences for these independent Mobil-branded operators."
Extracted in full from: http://www.qbr.com.au/news/articleid/56226.aspx
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