$1.40 a litre: that's life, says Caltex

[4.9 EF Futura]

Originally Posted by Dauphin

I've heard people say things like, "We have our own oil rigs getting oil from our own country, why don't we use it?" Does anyone know? Is it quality of fuel, octane, labour too high, not enough to go around for everyone? I wonder if we did use it, would it be influenced by world wide prices? If it was cheaper, maybe it'd get exported so they might keep the price the same.

Maybe we do use it?

We do indeed. We pump our own oil and refine a small amount. But we pay a market price for it, as dave au has explained. The companies involved are foreign owned - if we legislated that they sell to us at market price less x%, they'd take their bat, ball and sod off somewhere else.

IIRC we are 70% self sufficient, 30% is imported - but we pay the same price for it all.

This is NOT parity pricing - parity was discarded many moon ago (bob hawke). It's deregulated but the effect is similar...