\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult period for many consumers and businesses as we\u2019ve felt the flow-on effects from the conflict in the Middle East conflict,\u201d Chapple said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that we\u2019re seeing some stability in the region, we expect this will lead to lower imported fuel costs and we want to see that reflected in the prices consumers are paying.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission also said fuel surcharges and fuel adjustment factors (FAFs) must reflect only the additional fuel costs your business is facing.<\/p>\n
Chapple said placing or increasing a fuel surcharge on a product or a service is legal, so long as the business is transparent and upfront about the surcharge and what it\u2019s for.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs fuel costs go down, we expect any surcharge or fuel adjustment factor to reflect this reduction in cost,\u201d Chapple said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile surcharges and FAFs may not immediately disappear, they can\u2019t be used as an excuse to recover unrelated expenses or to increase margins.\u201d<\/p>\n
The price of Brent crude \u2013 the international benchmark \u2013 slipped under US$80 ($137) a barrel this week following news that the US and Iran had agreed a memorandum of understanding on Monday.<\/p>\n
Brent crude had exceeded US$120 a barrel in the early months of the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
According to fuel tracking app Gaspy, the average price of unleaded 91 has fallen from around $3.48 a litre in mid-April to $3.14 this week.<\/p>\n
At the onset of the conflict in early March, unleaded 91 was sitting at $2.49.<\/p>\n
Terry Collins, AA\u2019s principal policy adviser and fuel expert, told the Herald it could be 18 months before New Zealanders see the low prices that were in place before the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve kind of gone through the worst of the prices,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince May we\u2019ve just been watching a slow downward on average track of all the fuels.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur call to the oil companies is, just as quickly as they put the prices up at the beginning of the conflict, we want to see the prices coming down at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult period for many consumers and businesses as we\u2019ve felt the flow-on effects from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5195,138,7520,2371,802,4381,46988,9435,2678,2513,111,139,11552,69,90,34540,32257,43296,29158,6492,210,61],"class_list":["post-481151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-be","tag-business","tag-commerce","tag-commission","tag-costs","tag-customers","tag-ensure","tag-expects","tag-fuel","tag-lower","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-notice","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-passed","tag-pump","tag-puts","tag-putting","tag-retailers","tag-through","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}