Carriers question diesel margins

Freight carriers want an urgent Government investigation into diesel price margins after an apparent 50 per cent jump, although the oil industry says the figure is fallacious.

Road Transport Forum chief executive Tony Friedlander said yesterday that the margin charged by oil companies between a benchmark Singapore price and what diesel cost at the pumps rose from less than 20c a litre in September to 30c now.

His call came a day after diesel jumped by 3c a litre back to its highest-ever retail price of $1.09c - following a brief reduction from that level - and petrol rose to $1.51c for 91-octane and $1.56c for 95-octane.

"This is only the second time in 10 years the forum has publicly commented adversely on oil company diesel price margins, which shows just how concerned we are now," Mr Friedlander said.

But BP spokeswoman Diana Stretch questioned the figures he quoted off the Ministry of Economic Development's website, saying these referred to a grade of diesel which had never been sold in New Zealand.

Ministry energy information and modelling manager Roger Fairclough acknowledged that the website referred to diesel with a higher sulphur content than now allowed, and that an extra cost of importing better fuel had yet to be isolated from the price margin figures.

He said it was proving difficult to find a more reliable alternative measure, but the ministry was working hard with the oil industry to do so.

But Mr Friedlander said the higher wholesale cost of fuel was not enough to explain such a high margin, and that the ministry was a fuel price watchdog which should have anticipated the arrival of lower-sulphur diesel in time to alter its international benchmark.

"It's over four months since the new fuel specifications came in, and all the industry and other consumers can see are widening margins which no-one has been able to credibly justify - this is unacceptable."