http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/fuel-cost-soars-for-weekend/2006/09/28/11593
37280549.html

"OIL companies are under pressure to justify their petrol pricing
policies after an overnight price jump of more than 10 cents a litre
before the long weekend.

The average petrol price in Sydney rose from 113.8 cents a litre on
Wednesday to 124.1 cents a litre yesterday, NRMA price monitoring
showed.

It is routine for prices to increase late in the week because of the
petrol discounting cycle. But the NRMA said this week's price variation
was about 30 or 40 per cent bigger than earlier in the month, when the
variation was about 6 or 7 cents a litre.

The NRMA president, Alan Evans, said oil companies were manipulating
motorists. "With world crude oil prices falling, petrol prices should
be going down, not up. But a long weekend is coming, and the oil
companies know that people travel more and that they will pay.

"Any other business that did this would be crucified."

Yesterday the NRMA told a parliamentary inquiry into fuel prices that
oil companies had, over time, increased petrol prices by about 23 per
cent more than could be justified by rises in the international price
of crude oil.

Mr Evans said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission should
be given more power to crack down on oil companies. "If the oil
industry in Australia is truly competitive ... how are these oil
companies all raising their prices at the same time and recording
record profits?" he said.

But James Murphy, a Treasury official, told the parliamentary inquiry
that the commission had extensive powers to investigate alleged
breaches of the Trade Practices Act.

A spokeswoman for Caltex denied petrol prices were inflated before long
weekends.

"Analysis Caltex has done clearly shows that in the lead-up to, and
throughout, holiday long weekends pump prices follow their typical
weekly price cycles."

Is it about time Government put an end to the practice of fuel prices
being allowed to jump around on a daily basis?

I recall when I was in Italy in 2001 one of the fuel companies raised
their prices and there was actually an article in the paper about it,
as it only happens every now and then.

Marco