ACCC slams companies over petrol prices
Oil companies have 'stranglehold' over petrol supplies: ACCCPetrol companies will have to explain the recent jump in fuel prices to the consumer watchdog.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chief Graeme Samuel said petrol companies had used the excuse of refineries breaking down or going into maintenance to jack-up prices.
He said that excuse was unacceptable and the petrol companies would have to front the ACCC.
"I'm going to get all the relevant facts together over the next few days," he told ABC Television.
"I'm not going to call them in together for a meeting, I want to deal with them each separately and deal with the chief executives.
"Frankly, I will be saying to them that we are absolutely frustrated and bewildered at the fact that this new domestic excuse is now being provided ... and frankly, we're bewildered by the fact that they're just so insensitive to community anger and outrage at this sort of situation."
Mr Samuel said the ACCC petrol inquiry, which delivered its findings in December last year, identified long-term fixes to the problem of rising prices.
"They (the long-term fixes) involve trying to break the stranglehold that the oil companies have over our petrol supplies in this country," he said.
The inquiry found no obvious evidence of price fixing by oil companies but exposed structural issues in the industry that hamper competitiveness.
Source: AAP
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