What a coincidence! There’s been a lot of scrutiny by the competition regulator, the Australan Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and attention in the media, about petrol prices, and surprise, surprise, those prices take a bit of a nosedive. Indeed, prices would normally increase at this time of the week, as per the so-called weekly pricing cycle.

The price fixers and colluders in the petrol companies have obviously decided to wind their profit margins back to take a bit of heat off themselves. No doubt as soon as it drops out of the news, prices will creep back up.

What is the pricing cycle the oil companies always claim is the reason for prices jumping at particular times of the week, which in Canberra happily coincides with public service fortnightly paydays? I’ve never heard it satisfactorily explained, but its always struck me as bullshit. Why is there a predictable cycle other than for the reason the oil companies have created it and keep it going? Why do prices fall and then rise almost uniformly at the same time? No collusion going on ? Yeah, sure!

Legally speaking there almost certainly isn’t collusion or price fixing. I’d bet there was at one time, but nowadays the pricing behaviour is so ingrained into the petrol companies that they just “know” when and how much to move - nothing in writing, no meetings, no phone calls, not even a wink and a nod - thats just how it works.

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