Following the LPG Conversion subsidy, over 10,000 Aussie’s have called the LPG hotline number to make enquiries and 87% of the callers are desperate to convert - Sydney Daily Telegraph.

The surge in demand has resulted in the staff handling the calls growing from 4 to 90 people and the demand for LPG cars from the manufacturer has also increase by 10,000 vehicles. The waiting list for having an LPG Conversion is around 2 months, encouraging more mechanics to become qualified in LPG Conversions.

Raising the profile of LPG even more in Australian… Ford set a challenge of completing a lap of the country in an LPG car on a fuel budget of $1000. The 14,000km trip was completed with a pocket full of change left over!

In response to soaring oil prices the Australian Government have introduced a subsidy scheme for LPG Conversions. The Government is offering A$2,000 (£808) to people who convert their car to LPG and A$1,000 (£404) to people who buy cars that are already running on LPG. Petrol Stations will receive a grant of $20,000 (£8086) for supplying LPG at a lower price than unleaded petrol (40% lower). The scheme is said to be costing A$1.6bn over an eight year period. Critics have commented that despite the grant, lower-income drivers will still not be able to afford the cost of the conversion. LPG Conversions in Australia cost around A$4,000 (£1670) and save a typical driver around A$1,400 (£566) per year on fuel costs.

This is great news for the Aussies, perhaps the UK will follow suit - fingers crossed!

On August 5th “Stuff.co.nz” reported that the Kiwi’s have launched a dual-fuel Holden Commodore in New Zealand. The LPG Holden has come from Australia, where LPG is very common and the market is well developed. New Zealander’s are being educated on LPG, highlighting the environmental benefits along with the financial upside of running your car on LPG. Stuff reported that:

“The system is so efficient it is able to mimic the engine’s petrol injection sequence, and that means power and torque figures when on LPG are close to those when on petrol - in other words, there is no performance loss.”

The dual-fuel Holden does cost NZ$7150 more than the petrol model which is around £2,300. However, LPG is less than half the cost of petrol in New Zealand as it is in the UK, Europe, Australia and the States, so the overall cost saving is still worth the extra initial cost, especially when you consider how beautiful the New Zealand landscape is… why would anyone damage this?

I noticed over the weekend that the cost of petrol is now 99.9p in some parts of the UK. How can anyone afford this?

The fuel duty on petrol was 47.1p last summer (published by the BBC), due to the devastating effects that Hurricane Katrina had on the US oil production. Today’s headlines told us that BP has been forced to close one of it’s largest oil fields due to a leak in a pipeline; what effect will this have on the cost of fuel? The closed oil field was responsible for 8% of US daily oil production, producing 400,000 barrels a day at $77.10 per barrel. Company Spokesman, Darren Beaudo stated:

“We don’t know how long the field will be down but we will not resume operation of the field until we and government regulators are satisfied that they can be operated safely and pose no threat to the environment.”

This US oil field closure could potentially affect the cost of our fuel. With LPG users having security over low fuel duty they are less at risk from external threats on the cost of Gas. Is it time for your car to have an LPG Conversion?

Due to the rising fuel costs, more people are moving away from gas-guzzling cars and opting for smaller more economical cars.

US Car giants such as Ford and Chrysler have suffered a drop of around 20% in car sales, whilst the demand for Japanese cars has increased, with Toyota sales increasing by 16% on last years figures.  South Korean cars, such as Hyundai have had 6% increase on sales.  Chrysler is offering a discount package in an attempt to clear unsold cars from the showroom floors.  General Motors has restate it’s net loss for this quarter, which has increased by $200million to $3.4billion.

The cost of fuel is reaching an unaffordable limit, with more and more people seeking LPG conversions to benefit from the cheap cost of LPG, currently 46.9p per litre.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a law suit against BP in North America, accusing the company of buying large propane (LPG) stocks and withholding them from the market. BP controlled 90% of the domestic market for propane, forcing buyers to come to BP in order to heat houses, and fuel cookers. BP has been able to dictate the market price of propane, which is not only illegal but is also a huge threat to market integrity. BP sent propane prices rocketing to a 40% increase, only adding fuel to the existing problems of climbingpetrol prices.

This is not the first time that big oil and gas companies are being accussed of anti-competitive behaviour in the LPG market. In the UK, Shell, BP, Calor and co control around 90% of the domestic LPG market. These companies were subjected to investigations by the Competition Commission in 2004. Shell’s response to the investigations can be found here.

LPG pump price is still looking very attractive! After reading an article in The Guardian that once again discusses the prospect of 100p/litre unleaded petrol prices throughout the UK, I took a look at petrolprices.com (a website that gathers information on fuel prices from stations throughout the UK). We might be looking at extended working hours at Fuelture…Take a look at how much you could be saving with LPG at the current fuel prices.