Petrol prices

Shell has predicted that oil prices could fall to about $70 a barrel from current levels above $110, citing high volatility in the economy and energy markets.Australian petrol prices fluctuate according to the world price of oil and are currently soaring over $1.50 a litre.Royal Dutch Shell boss Peter Voser revealed that 2011 profits rose 54 per cent last year to $28.6bn, but said they estimated oil prices would slip "inside a $50-$90 range'' this year.He blamed "unprecedented geopolitical events" such as the Japanese earthquake, eurozone crisis and the Arab spring for a slide in oil demand and a subsequent drop in prices last year."The global economy and energy markets are likely to see continued high volatility," he said.Motor Trades Association of Australia (MTAA) boss Richard Dudley says world oil prices will "always have a considerable beating on the price of fuel here"."However, what we are more concerned about is the discounting war by the two supermarket giants," he says.Dudley says discounting over the holiday period had blown out to up to 25c a litre, but had since increased to 35c if motorists also buy alcohol."These are just temporary discounting activities but what we are looking at a future where the independents are forced out and motorists will be at the mercy of a duopoly dictating market prices. We have lost thousands of index retailers over last decade and about 2500 have left the industry in Victoria alone. Genuine competition in the market is what we want."

... another one before the weekend if recent trends hold.Average prices jumped from 136.7 cents a litre to 144.1 cents last Wednesday night. If the timing is the same this week, the rising price will skim more money out of our wallets again by Australia Day on Thursday. And for those planning a four-day weekend, the pain at the pump could get worse. According to the RACV website, petrol prices will likely jump again on Friday - and remain high on Saturday as well. But it's not set in stone, as earlier this month prices peaked on Monday, January 9, when many people returned to work, before a gradual decline until last Wednesday.

Australia's small-car market is up 2.9 per cent this year while the total market fell 2.8 per cent.Compact SUVs are also in demand - up 3.8 per cent - as families seek smaller, more spacious wagons.More are coming. Subaru Australia boss predicts that his company's new XV SUV wagon will become one of its biggest sellers when launched in January.Part of the reason, he says, is continuing interest in economical family wagons.Trends in SUV buying are seen as closely relating the price of petrol at the bowsers. When fuel prices rise, buyers back off. Conversely, low fuel prices seem to inspire people to buy.And that's the way it is likely to stay because unlike Europeans, we're not all ready for hybrids, diesels and electric cars.While hybrid car sales are on the rise, they account for a tiny 0.72 per cent of the passenger car market.Diesel cars are only 6.4 per cent of the total market but when it comes to SUVs - which demand greater fuel economy - they have a 9.8 per cent share of the SUV market.LPG car sales are down but that's only because Ford - the only carmaker currently producing a gas-only passenger car - is in between models.Its latest Falcon EcoLPi range, launched in August, is available in seven passenger car and ute versions.Motorists pay about 65c/litre for LPG - less than half the price of petrol - but gas cars consume about 25 to 50 per cent more fuel per kilometre than a petrol equivalent.

But we have been urged to buy fuel at the bottom of the weekly cycle to get cheaper prices.Motorists should expect erratic prices over the next few months as oil producers come to grips with factors including falling world oil demand.CommSec chief economist Craig James says there are a lot of things in play."In general, I'd expect prices to pretty much to remain the same," he said."It's difficult in this environment to come up with a longer-term prediction. But unless Europe can quickly solve its debt problems, oil prices will fall. At the same time, the Australian dollar is likely to fall against the US dollar, so they cancel each other out.""But Australia buys its oil from Singapore, so it's less affected by what's happening in Europe. What is positive for Australian motorists is that Singapore oil stocks are rising because refineries that were closed for maintenance are now back producing. That will push the oil price down. We haven't had that fully reflected at the bowsers yet."Mr James says he filled up his car "using an 8c/litre shopper docket" on Wednesday and paid $1.229 a litre in Sydney."I bought at the bottom, or close to the bottom, of the price cycle. That's the key - find the right time to buy fuel."FuelWatch coordinator Ray Gibson  said he is encouraging motorists to seek out the lower priced sites."Generally, the cheapest day of the week is Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday being the most expensive at the moment."An international report has stated that increasing use of electric and hybrid cars and improving sales of LPG vehicles, and Europe's expanding solar and wind-power farms, will make oil the slowest-growing fuel over the next 20 years.In a major research study by UK-based Ricardo Strategic Consulting, the report said: "Oil demand is now predicted to peak before 2020 but then fall away to lower levels than in recent years. In the next 20 years, the growth in oil use by OECD nations will almost halve."

... Carsguide has launched a mobile phone petrol price finder to help you save money on your next fill up.  To use the free service, simply visit carsguide.mobi on your mobile, enter your fuel type and postcode and you will see a list of prices at service stations in your area, along with a map of where they are located.If you are on a smart phone with built in GPS, the site will automatically find where you are and show you cheap petrol around you. Publisher of Carsguide, Sue Klose, said the mobile price finder empowered consumers with choice and enabled them to save on rising petrol prices by showing them where the best deals are located.“We’re all feeling the impacts of the rising petrol price and are on the look-out for the best day and time to fill up. Carsguide’s mobile petrol price finder gives drivers the ability to get the best price quickly and easily via their mobile phone.” “At Carsguide, we’re committed to giving drivers the best automotive news, information and tools available to make their driving life easier. The launch of carsguide.mobi is part of this commitment and we believe it will be a very useful tool for saving drivers’ money.”“So don’t pay top dollar for petrol over this Easter break. Visit carsguide.mobi and get the best price when you next fill up,” Ms Klose said.  Prices are provided by MotorMouth and collected from selected locations 13 times a week.Drivers can also access the petrol price finder via our website. Simply visit www.carsguide.com.au/petrol to access the finder as well as average weekly petrol prices around the country and information on fuel consumption and emissions of vehicles.Tips to Save Fuel CostsWe also recommend you do the following to save fuel costs:1.    Ensure your car is tuned and serviced regularly.2.    Reduce your speed. Driving more slowly reduces fuel consumption. In fact, travelling at 110kph uses up to 25% more fuel than cruising at 90kph. For city driving, 60km/h is the most fuel efficient speed.3.    Drive smoothly. Avoid hard accelerating and heavy braking as it uses up a lot more fuel.4.    Travel lightly and remove unnecessary items from your car to reduce weight5.    Make sure your tyres are inflated to the correct pressure, as soft tyres cause higher fuel consumption.6.    Avoid filling up past the first click of the fuel nozzle – going past means that fuel can be lost through the overflow pipe when you accelerate or go around corners.7.    Consider how much you use your air conditioner - it can use up to 10% extra fuel.8.    Avoid peak-hour. If traffic is stationary, switch off the engine, even if you stop for a short time. Idling wastes fuel9.    Car-pool wherever possible

The number of vehicles registered with diesel engines has increased 57.4 per cent to 2.2 million vehicles from March 2005 to 2010, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics motor vehicle census released yesterday (2 Feb 2011). They now represent 13.8 per cent of all registered vehicles.While passenger vehicle registrations grew 12.6 per cent in the five years to 2010, diesel-powered passenger vehicles grew 91.5 per cent.But while Australian motorists have embraced the frugal economy of diesel power, they have not been as keen on so-called "green" hybrid petrol-electric vehicles.VFACTS industry figures for last year show only 1769 new private passenger hybrids were sold, compared with 22,262 diesels. Government and business has shown more interest in hybrids with 7058 sold last year, compared with 23,364 non-private passenger diesels.The ABS census shows vehicles registrations increased 2.5 per cent in the past year to a record 16.1 million. That is 0.72 of a vehicle for every Australian last year compared with 0.68 in 2005.The census shows the biggest growth in vehicles registrations from 2005 to 2010 were in the Northern Territory (22.7 per cent), Western Australian (22.3 per cent) and Queensland (21.4 per cent). States with growth below the national average of 15. 4 per cent were South Australia (11.5 per cent), NSW (12.3 per cent), Victoria (12.7 per cent) and Tasmania (13.3 per cent).The average age of an Australian vehicle is 10 years with Tasmania having the oldest vehicles at 11.9 years and Northern Territory the youngest at 8.8 years.Motorcycle popularity continues to grow at a faster rate than any other vehicle type. From 2005 to 2010, motorcycle (including scooter) registrations had an average annual growth rate of 9.4 per cent. However, in the 12 months to March 2010, motorcycle registrations grew just 5.8 per cent.

Rubbish will move into the fuel frontline in 2014 when the Flex Ethanol Australia plant comes online in Victoria in a deal that links the Coskata company in a consortium including GM Holden and the Victorian government.Coskata already has a pilot ethanol program in the USA but is using wood chips, not rubbish, for a switch to full-scale production in less than two years. So Victoria will take up the rubbish collection in a deal that could eventually end the world's reliance on potential food sources - mostly corn in the USA - for automotive fuel."The technology is right today. We're hoping that is as soon as the Australian consortium moves forward," James Frawley, a vice-president of Coskata, tells Carsguide. "There is going to be a huge market. Our technology is cost competitive with gasoline as a transport fuel."His company rocked the fuel business when it first announced the rubbish-to-ethanol plan and its backing from General Motors, but it has been very quiet since then. Now Frawley is happy to confirm the success of a pilot production plant in the USA and the plans to go international, not just in Australia but to other countries including China and Brazil."This technology can go anywhere in the world. There are governments looking at Coskata technology as well."The Victorian plant could eventually turn up to one million tonnes of household, industrial and building waste into 200 million litres of ethanol each year, for use in the E85 fuel being rolled out across the country with backing from Holden.The Commodore is already E85 compatible and Holden is committed to the fuel for all future models. "We're in a position to now move to the next stage of the process, which is scaling up to a commercial design and full-scale processes," Frawley says. He forecasts that ethanol-from-rubbish plants have the eventual potential to supply half of the world's transport fuel needs without any impact on food or land use.What's considered 'rubbish'?Almost any sort of rubbish is suitable to ethanol production, says Coskata. That includes dirty nappies, used car tyres and even - potentially at least - cane toads."Rubbish is rubbish, anywhere you look," says James Frawley. "It's things that are going into landfill anywhere. Most of the things you recycle we wouldn't want in this process anyway."Rubbish becomes what is called a 'feed stock', which has mostly been corn until now in the USA. It is converted to a 'syngas' - composed mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen - at extremely high temperature before being fed to mico-organisms that produce ethanol as waste after 'eating' the gas."The organism does not care whether that carbon dioxide and nitrogen came from a tyre, a piece of biomass or whatever - it all works the same," says Frawley.

In fact, every year Aussie workers burn 16 sydharbs - 16 times the 500 million litres capacity of Sydney Harbour that has become a standard measurement - or more than 8 billion litres of fuel in total.In the last census, commuter and business travel accounted for about 105,434 million kilometres in total - about 49 per cent of passenger vehicle movement in Australia - with an average fuel consumption of more than 11.4L/100km.Petrol was 87.9 per cent of the 18.1 billion litres used for all passenger travel, so a rough estimate would indicate commuter/business travel used 7.8 billion litres of petrol, with the diesel taking the lion’s share of the remaining 1 billion litres split between it and LPG.And commuters could have cut that by 15-20 per cent - at least a billion litres, says automotive industry expert John Cadogan “A billion litres is a box as big as a football field on the base and stretching a kilometre into the sky. It’s a massive amount of fuel wasted just to get people to work."“Cars are fantastic as transport but unbelievably bad as mass transit. There are ways to save 15-20 per cent of your fuel consumption, but we don’t get advice about that because the Federal Government doesn’t want to cut off the flow of revenue - the 38c per litre plus 10 per cent GST means close to 50c per litre is government tax.“It’s a tidy little revenue stream. Which is why the federal government only pays lip service to the idea of reducing fuel consumption, rather than training Australians to drive with better efficiency."“There’s no financial imperative for them to reduce the nation’s fuel bill.”Cadogan says Australia’s road infrastructure is also part of the mass transit problem, boosting congestion and increasing the amount of time we spend on the road - and the amount of fuel we burn. “When you combine the large distances that many Australians drive to work in a largely urban sprawl environment on second-rate roads, you get an absolute disaster recipe - it’s little more than a quasi-static car park,” he says.“It’s the least efficient way to move people from A to B.” Cadogan says there are achievable solutions for the current - and future - near-gridlock. “A significant investment in infrastructure now would benefit the nation in about 10 years time when we’re really going to need it,” he says. “But even now, the road system is overwhelmed in capital cities twice a day."“However, it’s much better at night and in the middle of the day, so if we could be more flexible with work start and finish times, we could stagger the peak traffic.”Cadogan says that just five per cent of staggered ‘bundy’ times would be enough to improve the traffic flow considerably. “The drop in school holidays is about five per cent, and the traffic becomes noticeably easier,” he says.“Working from home one day a week would have the same result if a significant number of Australians did it. It’s all about getting cars off the road in peak times."“And the CSIRO estimates the price of oil will keep increasing, but demand from China and India could mean that it could become prohibitively expensive,” he says.In the meantime, he has some blunt tips for reducing your fuel bill if you have to drive to work. “Don’t drive like a ratbag… jockeying for position, cutting people off. There’s absolutely no benefit in A-to-B time, and every time you get heavily on the pedal to cut somebody off, you pay a huge premium in fuel."“The selection of car you commute in is crucial - it’s extremely inefficient to put one person, a briefcase and a cut lunch in a car that weighs 1.8 tonnes, or a race-ready sportscar. Your average commuter payload is 100kg, and the smaller the machine and engine in relation to the payload, the more efficient it is."“If you are going to commute, get a little $13,990 city car and you’ll be at the office in the same time as in a Porsche 911. You’ll just use less fuel - and maybe be more comfortable.”

With abundant local supplies of LPG and LNG transport analyst and managing director of energy group Rare Consulting, Mark McKenzie, told a gaseous fuels conference last week that Australia must secure its energy independence."We have a looming fuel deficit by 2030," he says."Australia's oil self-sufficiency will decline from 54 per cent in 2007 to less than 20 per cent by 2030 and possibly as low as 10 per cent if forecast new oil supply discoveries are not realised."McKenzie believes gas is a fuel of the future, particular given that transport consumes three-quarters of conventional oil supplies in Australia."There is a good strategic fit for gas," he says."The other thing about LPG is that we've got all the infrastructure in place."Currently there are 3200 LPG filling stations throughout Australia."That's one in every two service stations," McKenzie says.McKenzie sees LPG as a passenger car mainstay with LNG and CNG being more widely used in the heavy duty transport sector.The benefits of LPG are well documented. It delivers lower emissions, can be used in diesel engines, has lower engine wear and is half the cost of petrol.Australia too is believed to have about 65 years of gas reserves, according to Geoscience Australia.McKenzie also believes that newer-generation and more reliable LPG injection systems from carmakers and the after-market LPG fitters will help accelerate demand.However, another conference delegate, GM-Holden's energy and environment director, Richard Marshall, warned that Australian motorists are unlikely to switch to LPG in any great numbers while petrol prices remaining relatively cheap in global terms.Government incentives have helped induce buyers into LPG-powered vehicles and its tax-free status means it is cheaper at the pump compared to petrol.On the LPG excise question, McKenzie accepts there will be some impact on growth once it comes in from 2011 but he says the fuel must start paying its way.LPG receives no excise until 2011 at which time an excise of 2.5c a litre will apply, increasing by 2.5c each year until July 1, 2015, when it will be capped at 12.5c a litre.McKenzie says that the Federal Government could use an excise-free inducement for the development of other new fuel technologies like bio-fuel."One of the challenges in terms of some of the new fuels, particularly bio-fuels is that they will not be competitive without that excise exemption, ever," he says."We should be looking for fuel sources that really just need a window of exemption to allow them to gain a foothold in the market on the understanding that they will be able to pay their way in the future."Last year about 120,000 ex-factory and retro-fitted LPG cars were sold.Another conference delegate, Tony Fitzgerald of Orbital Autogas Systems in Perth, expects that by 2015 150,000 LPG-fueled vehicles will be sold each year.Of those about 80,000 will be ex-factory systems, with liquid injection and sequential vapour systems will take over from older LPG fuel systems.Less than 5 per cent of Australia's LPG fleet currently use newer sequential injection systems but Fitzgerald believes the rate of growth will accelerate."One of the challenges the LPG industry faces at the moment is the range and degree of some of the technology," he says."And some of this needs improvement." 

Dr Laurie Sparke, who recently retired after a career at GMH, says diesel fuel supplies for transport will be hit hard.“The growing use of diesel fuel is of concern because it will require increased imports,” he says.Sparke says Australia needs to secure its future fuel resources, citing LPG and natural gas as potential fuel sources.LPG and natural gas have the greatest potential to insulate the country from any future global oil shocks, he says.“World energy consumption has outstripped world supply,” Sparke says.“Australia will not have access to enough oil in the future. To secure a sustainable future we need to remove our dependency on oil. The opportunity to utilise natural gas in a way that has less environmental impact than oil has is a compelling one.”Australia produces less than half the oil it needs but has vast reserves of gas that could secure our transport future.“Most importantly, gas can replace the shortfall of oil in the near future,” he says.Motorists face a worse situation than the oil crises of the 1970s and '80s, featuring rationing and disruption of oil supplies.“Australia needs to be concerned about what fuel sources will be available in the short term,” Sparke says.The International Energy Agency predicts global oil supplies could become “extremely tight” within five years, being felt disproportionately in Australia.