Singapore: No price fixing among petrol retailers says competition watchdog

There is no evidence to suggest collusion in petrol pricing, the Competition Commission of Singapore announced at a media briefing on Tuesday.

This is despite the fact that the four petrol companies – Caltex, Esso, Shell and Singapore Petroleum Company – monitor and react to each other’s published prices, CCS concluded from its interim findings from a study initiated in 2015.

CCS first asked the four major petrol players in February last year to justify why their pump price hikes were more than the increase in government duty. This was also after the Consumers Association of Singapore accused the companies of profiteering.

Since then, pump petrol prices have dipped, but not as much as crude oil, which reached their lowest in a decade – decreasing by more than 70 per cent from over S$160 a barrel in 2014 to around S$40 last month.

CCS – a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry which investigates alleged anti-competitive activities – said it studied factors affecting the movement of petrol prices in Singapore since 2010, and also obtained information from companies on their pricing practices.

Full content: Singapore Business Review

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