Fed: Aust petrol prices unaffected by oil price hike: assoc

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-2000
Fed: Aust petrol prices unaffected by oil price hike: assoc

The Service Stations Association says Australian petrol prices are unlikely to rise
despite a hike in US oil prices.

However, the association's chief executive officer CHRIS HANLON says the current high
petrol prices will remain until at least the end of March,

Oil prices in New York have now risen past $US30 a barrel of light sweet crude for
the first time since the Gulf War broke out in January 1991.

Mr HANLON says the hike is unlikely to affect prices here, which have soared recently
to an average of 80c a litre.

He says prices are traditionally the highest during the Christmas period, or the US
winter, when demand for oil peaks.

But he says high prices are unlikely to fall until at least the end of March, when
the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meets next.

AAP km/tsm/wz/rp

KEYWORD: MARKETS OIL AUST (SYDNEY)

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