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Market Definition Of Australia's Petroleum Industry

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Market Definition
Australia’s petroleum industry consists of two broad areas of operation: upstream and downstream. Downstream operations are divided into three sectors—total supply (including refining and importing), wholesale and retail while upstream operations consist of the exploration, production, and export of crude oil. This paper emphasizes on the retail petroleum industry that distributes refined petroleum product to end-consumers throughout Australia, although the other sectors will also be covered in which they impact on Australia’s retail petroleum industry.

The petroleum product sold in the market has three differentiation, which is based on the quality represented by Research Octane Number (RON); such as Regular Unleaded Petrol 91 RON (RULP) and Premium Unleaded Petrol 95 and 98 RON (PULP) and another product which is petrol containing ethanol, E10. These products are supplied from upper vertical chain sectors which include refining, imports and wholesale. The products such as jet fuel, diesel, and gas fuel have a different market, thus, they are not considered.

Internal Rivalry

The retail fuel market in Australia is highly competitive and not regulated. There are approximately 6300 retail sites in 2013 with high number of retailers. According to Australia Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) in 2014, market share is dominated mainly by several companies such as Shell, British Petroleum, Caltex, Coles Express, and Woolworths respectively by 2, 13, 18,

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