Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Industry Expert and General Manager of Fuel Trac Geoff Trotter Explains Why The NT Is Seeing High Fuel Prices

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Industry Expert and General Manager of Fuel Trac Geoff Trotter Explains Why The NT Is Seeing High Fuel Prices · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Three sixty with Katie Wolf thanks to Joyce Main Darwin
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Homes on Stuart Highway, Bereromote.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: It's twenty eight minutes after nine o'clock eight nine four
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  Speaker 2: one one oh four nine. If you'd like to call
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: through this morning, if you'd like to send us a message,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: as so many of you have done already about these
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: petrol prices, it's zero four double nine seven double one
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: three six zero. Now just to take you through those
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: terminal gate price prices and also the bowser prices in
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Darwin today. Firstly, for your unlettered will, the terminal gate
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: price according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, it is
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: sitting at a dollar sixty two point seven. Now at
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: the bowser you're paying two dollars five point five on
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: average for your diesel at the terminal gate it's a
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: dollar ninety point six.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Then when you go across to.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: The bowser again the average around a dollar thirty three
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: point five. So there does certainly appear to be some
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: massive margins there. Now joining me on the line to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: talk more about this is Jeff Trotter. He's an industry
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: expert who's worked with some of the world's major petrol
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: companies and is now the general manager of Fuel Track.
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  Speaker 1: Good morning to you.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Jeff, Good morning Katie.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Great have you on the show, Jeff.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Have you been keeping an eye on the prices in
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Darwin and how do you reckon we compare it to
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: other locations around the nation At this point, Katie.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: We're actually tracking the prices at about one hundred and
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: eighty locations around Australia currently and have been doing now
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: for some months, principally to see whether or not matoris
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: we're getting the benefit of that reduction in the federal excise.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: The federal government announced that reduction about twenty two and
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: a half since in the wholesale rate, but at the
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: pump it should have delivered it twenty five cent earlier.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Saving Now the concern we've got, Katie is that what's
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: happened apart from that reduction the excise is that since
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: the twenty third of June, there's been a significant and
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I mean significant drop in international wholesale prices for unleaded
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: and diesel. And whilst we're seeing some savings being passed
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: on to motorists in the other capital cities for unleaded,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: no significant savings are being passed on by the old
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: companies to anybody, and I mean anybody buying diesel around Australia.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: It's really outrageous. Wow. Look in the situation in Darwen
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: in particular, you're right, you're unleaded come price about two
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: dollars six a liter, and they can and the wholesale
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: price is down below a dollars seventy, so they're making
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: they're making forty cents a letter on unleaded at that
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: price and diesel. Your average is two thirty four, you said,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and it's down below about ninety five, so they making
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: another forty plus cents a letter on diesel.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Right, it's jff.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: It feels like we're being after, to put it politely, Look.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Darwin in particular is being shafted on unlettered petrol and diesel.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: The rest of the nation has been completely shafted on diesel.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you there's been no significant reduction in
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: diesel prices at any of the capital cities, let alone
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: any of the regional cities around Australia. Now, I know
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: this treasurer is said he's keeping an iron it, but
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know how much longer he's going to keep
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: an iron it to work out that materis have been
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: watered on. Diesel in particular, Darwin has a special case
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: run because most of our capital cities, apart from the
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: old people in Hobart as usual, all the other capital
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: cities you can get fuel between a dollar eight and
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: a dollar ninety anywhere. At the moment some of them
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: were down as well as a dollar seventy five. Darwin. No,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: it's the Darwin cooker. You know. The boys the fixes
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  Speaker 3: in and it took some very wrong action from the
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Chief Minister a number of years ago to effectively sort
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: of break up that club up there. And I think
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  Speaker 3: the Chief Minister needs to call them in again and
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  Speaker 3: get a please explain from them why are they not
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  Speaker 3: passing on any significant savings the pump Runt letter, but
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  Speaker 3: particularly for diesel.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff, that is like music to my ears.
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  Speaker 2: Mate. I've been thinking, you know, why are we in
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: a situation here in the Northern Territory where we're not
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: doing what we did all those years ago when Adam
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Giles was the Chief Minister. We called him out very
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: strongly on this show. At the time, Pete Davies was
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the host. I was producing the show and he was
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: really strong on it. We felt like we were being
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: shafted back then, and it feels like we're in the
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: same situation now. But I can't believe, you know that
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  Speaker 2: the Chief Minister is not actually standing up and going
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  Speaker 2: hang on a second, why, you know, please explain why
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: these profit margins are the way that they are right now.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And look, the Northern Arffism is in the unique position,
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  Speaker 3: as I understand it, of the Chief Minister having the
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: power to actually call them in and set a price.
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  Speaker 3: That's the power that most other states don't have. And
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  Speaker 3: I understand it. Under some emergency legislation you've got available
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: to the Chief Minister, he can actually call them in
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  Speaker 3: and if need be, he could set a sealing price
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  Speaker 3: for them. And my guess would be that he should
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  Speaker 3: drop it by twenty five cents a leader across unleaded
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  Speaker 3: and diesel.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, Jeff Old, just that you know, we've got a
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: female chief minister now, Natasha Fhiles is her name, But
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the sentiment is still exactly the same. You know, I
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: think that really, if we are meant to have this
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: fuel excise in place, Look, honestly, it doesn't feel as
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: though we've seen much change at all, even since that
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: fuel excise came in.
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  Speaker 3: Well no, look, at the time that the reduction, the
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: exercise came in unleaded petrolin down was about till I
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  Speaker 3: was twenty five a leader, and diesel got up to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: about two. I was forty year leter in Darwen. The
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: excised capped by twenty five. Then the international price, which
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: was the cause of the high prices originally, that has
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: dropped completely. So what's happened. You've had a nineteen cent
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: leader reduction at the pumping unleaded, but the wholesale price
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: has moved down thirty So those thieves have pocketed the
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  Speaker 3: difference and they're doing the same thing on diesel.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, it's unbelieved.
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  Speaker 3: They need to be called out. They need to be
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  Speaker 3: called out on it now.
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  Speaker 2: Jeff, I want to point out to our listeners as well.
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  Speaker 2: Is that My understanding is you know that you've worked
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: for some of these huge companies. You worked for Shell
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: for an incredibly long period of time, didn't you.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I did. I did. And but apart from that, we've
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: been tracking international prices, local wholesale prices, some prices right
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: around Australia so we know exactly what these characters are
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: up to, and the RT, the fixes in on diesel
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: nationally in Australia, and the fixes in on unleaded petrol
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: prices in Darwen and Hobart. Let me let me not
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: forget those poor people. The only capitalist cities where there's
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: been significant price reductions, adelaide Is would have to be
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: the leader. They got down to dollar seventy yep. But Bristane, Sydney,
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Melbourne and Perth they go up and down like Yo
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: yo's with this fake fuel cycle thing. They run, you know,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: the greatest bubble all times. But apart from that, at
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: least at the bottom of the cycle, they're down around
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: the dollars seventies low dollar eates. But you guys don't
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: see the benefit. You don't see any benefit up there
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  Speaker 3: at all.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: No, it's perplexing.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And you know, for me, like I understand I've been
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: told in the past, you know, by some of these retailers.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: It's a situation in Darwin where the terminal gate price
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: might drop a couple of cents, but the reason that
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  Speaker 2: there's no movement at the bowser is because they've got
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: to use the fuel that they've already got in storage.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, is that the case?
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's just a rubbish. I mean the international
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: price international price started dropping on the twenty third of June.
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  Speaker 3: These characters seriously arguing that they've still got the same
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: fuel and the tanks that they had on the twenty
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: third of June.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, give me a break, Oh, jeff mate, I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: agree with you. I think your spot ony.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I do want to ask you the opposition here in
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the Northern Territory, they're proposing the introduction of legislation which
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: is designed, they say, to drive down the cost of
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: fuel by requiring petrol stations to disclose their profit margins
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: on fuel. So that's what they're going to be basically, well,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: they're going to be introducing it today in parliament.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: You reckon something like this would work?
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, instead of just disclosing what they're making,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: why not cap what they're making. I mean, put look,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: the federal government had no qualms about intervening in the
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: petrol issory. In the electricity market, they put a market
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: cap of three one hundred dollars per mega what hour
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: to get through a situation that was facing in electricity.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I think they've also intervened in the gas market. What's
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: wrong with them intervening in the petrol market. What's different
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: about the petrol market to the electricity market or the
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: gas market when there's obvious signs of a cookup? How
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: was it that virtually every service station in when it's
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: two dollars and five point nine and these are this
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  Speaker 3: two dollars thirty two point nine up too, Like it's
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: literally everyone if it was if it was a competitive market,
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  Speaker 3: there would be competition.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, Jeff, Yeah, I look, I know that all
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  Speaker 2: of our listeners this morning are going to be listening
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  Speaker 2: to you and thinking, Thank goodness, Katie, you've got someone
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: that's on that is speaking some sense after some of
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: the garbage that we've been told when it comes to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: these petrol prices. So we you know, I think that
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you're spot on. We've got a situation here where the
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Chief Minister needs to intervene.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Hey, Katie, let me tell you talking about stock the
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: only stock profit that these oil companies interested in is
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: the amount of stock profit they can make in all
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: those tanks out at Boupak. Right, So those characters got
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: millions deleaders out there that they paid for, like at
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: a dollar sellios already whatever, and they're still trying to
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: flog it off at two ills ten and till I
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: was thirty or whatever the cooked up number is in
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Darwin honestly Whattock profits.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Jeff, I reckon that. You know, I know
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: that people want to see these prices come down. I
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: do want to ask you just very quickly. Over the weekend,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: the federal government announced that they're going to be fast
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: tracking the timeline for Australia to phase out dirty petrol
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: to ensure that we meet these cleaner global standards. But
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: it's going to apparently come at a short term financial cost. Now,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: the Climate Change and the Energy Minister Chris Bowen announce
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the nation's fuel supplies will need to be replaced with
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: petrol which has lower sulphuric acid levels by twenty twenty
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: four rather than twenty twenty seven. He reckons it's only
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: going to see each household pay eight dollars extra over
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: three years.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Is this a good move?
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Well, it's a good move to improve the quality standard
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: these book But let me tell you the federal government
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: again is paying this character's accompanies two hundred and fifty
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: million bucks to upgrade the refineries, So why would we
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: be paying anything extra when the federal government's paying for
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: the upgrade to the We've only got two refineries in
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Australia operated by a Pole and Viva, and the previous
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: federal government has allocated two hundred and fifty million dollars
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to upgrade the refineries to meet the standards. And yet
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: what the ac company is going to put the price up?
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Are they even though they've had a two hundred and
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: fifty million dollar handout from the taxpayers of Australia. We
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: should be getting a discount on the fuel of an increase.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Well, Jeff, I tell you what, I appreciate your time
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: this morning.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: You've given us some really great insight and I reckon
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you are going to be getting a lot of support
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: from our listeners.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So thank you so very much for having a chat
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: with us today.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Please thank you so much.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: That number if you do want to call through this
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: morning eight nine four one one O four nine and
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: if you did just join us at the end of that.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: That was Jeff Trotter, the general manager of fuel Track.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Now we know that he's an industry expert. He's worked
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: with some of the world's major petrol companies. But he's
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: now the general manager obviously a fuel track and honestly,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: some of what he was saying there, I was thinking,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: thank goodness, somebody is actually saying what we've all been
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: wondering and what we've all been thinking for quite some time.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: The tech sign is going off. There's a lot of you.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: There is a lot of you that are in contact
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: with us on the tech Sign and keen to let
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: us know how things are tracking where you are or
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: where you may have traveled too recently and the petrol
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: prices that you've paid. But we're going to take a
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: really short break before I do read some of those out,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: but we are going to be catching up with the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Cattleman's Association in around five minutes time as well,