Singapore is supposed to alternate with Rotterdam, as either the Number One or Number Two in being the largest and most efficient Oil Refining Center in the World.
Both places do not have any oil, but are the top refining centers with a large volume of crude oil passing through.
With the reputed astuteness of the Ruling Elite, it is hardly unbelievable that large floating oil storage of up to three to six months buffered supply do not exist.
Yet we see the pump prices fluctuating on a daily or weekly basis whenever the crude oil price move, and this is despite the existence of the crude oil being buffered as all strategic commodities are stored.
The pockets that are profiteering from the price fluctuations are the Oil Companies, and the Government which collects a heft FIFTY PERCENT TAX
This article was taken from a Malaysian site, maybe applicable to our local experience :
When looking ways to incraese my car fuel mileage efficiency, I stumble upon this information :
How Gas Price works According to the data from US DOE (Department of energy), the petrol price is actually break down as following :
43% - Crude oil
13% - refinining cost and profits
13% - distribution, marketing and profits
31% - Taxes
And some Petrol station mark up.
It is a big suprise when in year 2004, average price for a gallon(3.785 liters) of petrol in US cost around US$ 1.79, which is close to RM1.79 per liters. That's is time when Malaysia petrol price is cost around RM1.20 per liters.
If you check the above table, you will notice that taxes represent a huge sum of the US petrol price, say we minus US 0.20 from the selling price, the cost at petrol station will be US$1.59(RM6.04) per gallon or RM1.60 per liters. Minus the 31% tax, the cost of the petrol should be around RM1.10 per literes.
So come here come the story of "Petrol subsidiaries". Although the media keep feeding us with data from ASEAN country, no single media in Malaysia are able to give us the data as what DoE of US provide.
Looking at the US DoE data, it is obvious that the petrol price of Thailand, Philipine and Indonesia is nothing but result of tax levy on the petrol.
To date, no ASEAN country government releasing single piece of data about the REAL PETROL COST. For the case of indonesia, the hikes is pretty obvious : the petrol hikes is a cumulative result of international crude oil hikes and HUGE GOVERNMENT levy.
In short, ASEAN country(except Brunei that did not impose petrol tax, while Singapore imposing less car policy) is currently riding on the international oil price to exploit the people. It is clear that crude oil price increase did TOO little to the current petrol price increase. Is this the same to Malaysia "petrol subdisidiaries". I don't know, since no ASEAN government is releasing the information.
Please leave you comment if you think my theory is flaw.
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