Bowser bungle sees Cannington servo sell WA’s most expensive diesel and cheapest unleaded

A Cannington fuel station’s owners have unloaded on Consumer Protection and FuelWatch after a simple error forced them to sell the state’s most expensive diesel on Tuesday, while at the same time selling the state’s cheapest unleaded.

Burk Cannington took to Facebook to explain why it was selling diesel at $3.93 per litre – more than 50 cents per litre more than the next-most expensive fuel, in the remote Kimberley town of Kununurra, where it was being sold for $3.43 per litre.

“We want to be completely transparent with our customers about what’s happening,” the post reads.

“Due to a genuine typographical error during our FuelWatch daily price submission, the diesel price for Burk Cannington was incorrectly reported as $3.973/L instead of our intended price of $2.973/L.

“Despite this being an obvious mistake, FuelWatch has strictly refused to allow any correction and have clearly told us to sell diesel at the advertised (typo error) price.”

In a twist, Burk Cannington was selling WA’s cheapest unleaded fuel on Tuesday, at $2.29 per litre.

In the post, Burk Cannington said FuelWatch’s refusal to budge meant it had only two options – sell diesel at the “extremely inflated and unrealistic price” or shut diesel completely for the day.

“Both options are completely unfair and do not serve the public in any way,” it said.

“It is extremely disappointing to see a government system act in such a rigid manner, especially when everyday customers are the ones impacted the most.

“At Burk, we are committed to looking after our community and making sure our customers are never disadvantaged due to circumstances like this.”

The station will give all diesel customers a $1.04-per-litre discount all day Tuesday and until 6am on Wednesday.

“This is the only practical solution we could come up with to ensure our customers are treated fairly despite the situation. We appreciate your understanding and continued support.”

A spokeswoman for Consumer Protection, which operates the FuelWatch system, said the FuelWatch rules were in place for a reason but she commended Burk Cannington for doing the right thing and offering a post-sale partial refund as a workaround.

“Fuel prices being locked in for a 24-hour period is an essential part of FuelWatch, which has served Western Australian motorists well for more than 20 years by providing transparency, certainty, and fairness, while putting downward pressure on prices,” she said.

“If we changed the rules to allow retailers to decrease prices during the day, they could notify a maximum price for the day and only reduce their price if a competitor has a lower price.

“This would be unfair on those retailers locking in a more competitive price the day before and also for consumers, who rely on FuelWatch pricing to be accurate. Drivers may end up paying more.”

The spokeswoman said retailers could lodge their prices for the next day from 8.30am, and it could be corrected until 2pm when the system locks the prices in.

“Allowing changes will undermine the system and allow for anti-competitive behaviour, putting upward pressure on prices,” she said.

“Some retailers will make genuine mistakes, but we don’t want others to try to ‘work’ the system and undermine FuelWatch, which has delivered lower average fuel prices to WA for years.

Treasurer Rita Saffioti described the situation as unfortunate and said she felt for the retailer and would speak to relevant ministers about it.

“As I understand, the rules are there to try and make sure the systems are undermined. This is a very unfortunate case. Happy to take it up with relevant ministers,” she said.

The mix-up comes as the WA government announced it was establishing a ministerial taskforce to tackle fuel supply and cost issues arising from the Iran conflict.

The industry support working group will meet for the first time on Tuesday and will be chaired by Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti.

Saffioti said the group differed from the group chaired by Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, which was fuel supply-specific. Saffioti’s group was a forum for fellow cabinet ministers to raise issues in specific industries.

“Minister Sanderson’s group, as Minister for Energy, is all about making sure there’s the delivery of fuel across WA,” she said.

“What it’s really aimed to do is there’s a lot of different industry impacts out there, all contacting their individual ministers. It’s bringing it all together in one place, and then we have action plans.“

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