Only earlier this month, the ACCC suffered an embarrassing setback when it dropped all actions resulting in a highly publicised, and some say orchestrated, raid on the NSW offices of petrol retailers Caltex, Shell and Mobil to inspect and copy documents.

A release from the ACCC yesterday said it had provided the Federal Government with a report, Terminal gate pricing arrangements in Australia and other fuel pricing arrangements in Western Australia, after its request to monitor the arrangements. It said pricing agreements in the state were not working.

Terminal gate pricing arrangements were introduced on a regulatory basis in Western Australia and Victoria in 2001 and on a voluntary basis in the other states by a number of the oil companies in 2002. With respect to the Victorian terminal gate pricing arrangements introduced in August 2001, the ACCC said it found difficulty forming a view on their impact because the extent to which they apply to the petroleum market in Victoria was not clear. The arrangements apply to both spot and contract sales and the ACCC was unable to determine how many contracts fell under the arrangements.

However, the report noted that since the introduction of the arrangements in Victoria, average retail prices in both Melbourne and country Victoria had increased by 1.0 and 0.5 cents per litre (cpl) respectively against a benchmark indicator.

With respect to the fuel pricing arrangements in Western Australia, the report said that the ACCC found it hard to conclude that fuel pricing arrangements introduced by the State Government have been successful to date.

The report noted that the terminal gate pricing arrangements introduced in Western Australia had not worked as intended, as few sales had been made under these arrangements.

"This has been recognised by the Western Australian Government, which introduced revised terminal gate pricing arrangements in December 2002", Professor Fels said.