FuelClub Discount

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has flown into Japan to try to turn the tension with his Japanese counterpart Yasuo Fukuda into a new partnership to tackle climate change, broaden security ties and “apply the blowtorch” to oil cartel OPEC to force it to increase production.

Mr Rudd urged the coming G8 meeting - which Mr Fukuda will chair next month in northern Hokkaido - to pressure OPEC to increase oil supplies and drive down prices. Prices for oil futures hit a new record of $US138.54 on Friday, up $US16.50 in two days and prompting warnings that petrol prices in Australia could reach $A1.70 a litre within days.

Interviewed on television before leaving Australia, Mr Rudd dodged a question on the potential impact of emissions trading on petrol prices, but promised that the Government would provide support to “families under financial pressure” to offset the additional costs they will face from higher energy prices.
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The Australian unit of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday it may bring forward a planned diesel import cargo to meet strong demand from miners in western Australia after an explosion cut gas supplies.

The blast earlier this week at a gas plant operated by a unit of Apache Corp (APA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has left mining companies, metals refiners and other industrial users in Australia’s most important mining region out of fuel or scrambling for alternative sources of gas or diesel to minimise the impact on production.

“We have received interest from customers to lift more diesel than their forecast demand in western Australia,” Shell Australia said in a statement.
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The boy, the first known fatality from Opal fuel, died hours after a youth disco at the remote community of Hermannsburg, 120km west of Alice Springs, on April 13 last year.

He had gone with his cousin to a small hill where he inhaled a bottle containing Opal, drained from a broken down car, and suffocated.

Manufactured by BP and promoted as a “non-sniffable” fuel, Opal has been credited with dramatically reducing petrol sniffing in Aboriginal communities since first being introduced in 2005.

It contains lower levels than standard petrol of the aromatics which provide sniffers with a “high”.
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The world’s biofuel industry is being accused of driving up world food prices and causing instability and starvation in developing nations.

Here in Australia, the Federal Departments of Agriculture and Resources are conducting their own review of the industry, due later this year.

But Peter Anderton, the chief executive of biofuel manufacturer, AgriEnergy Limited, claims the government could fix the industry’s problems by changing just one piece of legislation to make it more competitive.

“At the moment, ethanol is restricted to ten per cent in Australia,” he said.
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The federal Government announced its decision to extend the WA scheme nationally, and the only saving grace is that it won’t be introduced until year’s end because, frankly, the scheme is a nonsense with only political benefits.

The Government wants to be seen as doing something about petrol prices, so it unveiled a petrol price commissioner for the ACCC, which is also an anathema, given the ACCC is meant to look after economy-wide benefits, and now the fuel-watch program, which actually stops retailers dropping prices.

The idea of the scheme is retail prices are posted on the internet and not allowed to be touched for 24 hours.

This means that if a retailer finds out the guy next door has lower prices, he can’t change them, and as 70 per cent of a service station’s gross profits are from the convenience store, this can be a disaster.
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The federal government has refused to rule out the possibility its proposed emissions trading scheme will force up petrol prices.

The government will offer a glimpse of the much-awaited scheme to battle climate change when it releases a green paper in July.

A timetable, released this week, said by the end of the year the government would give a “firm indication” of the scheme’s trajectory, which would determine the initial price of carbon.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong reaffirmed the scheme - the centrepiece of efforts to curb greenhouse gases - would begin in 2010.

Asked on Tuesday whether the scheme would force up petrol prices, Senator Wong refused to rule it out.

“Absolutely we know from the Stern report and a from a range of other advisers, including Professor Garnaut, that the cost of neglecting to act to the Australian economy and to households will be significantly greater than … the cost of responsible action now,” Senator Wong said.

The Australian people recognise the scheme would not be painless, she said.

But the government would be “methodical and careful” to ensure the impact was minimised.

Source: The Age