Consumers to see more breaks for petroleum products
Prices continue to slide, but…

Media release

Conception Bay South, NL, November 18, 2008 - Consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador will be seeing more breaks on pricing of petroleum products this week when pricing is set this Thursday but there should be more savings than what we are seeing at the pumps, that’s according to George Murphy, group researcher for the Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices.

“Consumers should see another 4.0 to 4.2 cents per litre down on gasoline for the immediate St. John’s area. That will translate to a price of .89 cents a litre for the residents of Conception Bay South. Heating and stove oils are projected to drop by as much as 4.58 cents per litre and diesel fuels will drop close to 4.0 cents per litre this Thursday at midnight when pricing is adjusted by the provinces’ Public Utilities Board Petroleum Pricing Office.

Fuel surcharges should be dropping
“Mariner Atlantic instituted a round of fuel surcharges on passenger and auto traffic last June 12, 2008 on top of a 2 per cent fuel surcharge that was added in June of 2007. The numbers for residual oils are now 32 per cent of what they were back in March, 2008 when they hit their peak. It was in June of 2008 that we saw the additional 27.7 per cent fuel surcharge added based on those numbers. Residual oils reached a peak of $2.73 a US gallon but have since backed down to a rough 88 cents a US gallon. Why are we still paying the surcharge? This is adding to the hardship consumers and business is having in a hard economic time. It is time for Marine Atlantic to return pricing back to the June ’07 level as numbers have decreased to that point.

“As for the airlines, we have seen the price of jet fuel return to August ‘05 levels yet, we haven’t seen a substantial drop in the fuel surcharge on airline ticket fares. When are the airlines going to remove the surcharges they implemented and return ticket pricing back to ’05 levels? This is amounting to a huge financial rip-off to the consumer and business person who requires airline transportation. The airlines along with Marine Atlantic should immediately drop some of the fuel surcharges before the busy Christmas travel season. All these fuel surcharges at this minute add to an artificial inflation rate on consumers in the province and, indeed, to the rest of Canada.

OPEC’s next move
“OPEC is set to meet again at the end of November and I expect another attempt at reducing output by the group. The next regular meeting of the group is set for December 17, 2008 so, this meeting is bringing in the usual concerns of an oversupply in the markets. Consumers should not be surprised to see the group attempt to regain control of world oil supply and, I also predict another cut of close to 750,000 barrels of production.”

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For more information, contact;

George Murphy
Group researcher/Member
Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices
gasprices@hotmail.com