Deputy Prime Minister Incorrect

For Immediate Release
27 July 2000

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
INCORRECT

BP’s Managing Director Peter Griffiths says Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton has again got his facts wrong in saying that 83% of petrol sold in New Zealand comes directly from crude oil imports.

Figures from the New Zealand Refining Company (Marsden Point) show that 59% of petrol sold to date this year by New Zealand’s four largest oil companies was made from crude oil at Marsden Point. This figure does not include Gull and Challenge who import all their petrol.

So far this year, New Zealand’s four largest oil companies have imported 33% of their petrol as already-refined product, the remaining 8% is made up of petrol components that are imported to be blended at Marsden Point into premium petrol.

Mr Griffiths says the New Zealand oil industry is one of the most open markets in the world and that New Zealand motorists enjoy very competitive prices. In the United Kingdom, for example, a litre of petrol costs over $NZ3, Melbourne motorists currently pay around NZ$1.17 a litre and even the US, which traditionally has low prices, is seeing a litre of petrol sell for around NZ95 cents.

ENDS

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