Wholesale price of 168.4 c/L for fuel ethanol from 1 April 2023
IPART has determined a reasonable wholesale price for fuel ethanol from 1 April 2023 of 168.4 cents per litre (excluding GST). This is 1.2 cents or around 0.7% higher than the determined price for the previous period from 1 January 2023, which was 167.2 cents per litre.
The increase in the determined price is due to higher origin country freight, sea freight and fuel excise, offset by a slight fall in the mill-gate price.
Our approach applies the sum of the 9-month average of each cost component as our best estimate of the cost of importing ethanol for the current period. For fuel excise, we adopted a new approach in January 2023 to use the excise rate at the time that we publish the determination, rather than the historical average. We will maintain this approach because it better reflects the cost of fuel excise for the current period. Stakeholders agreed with this approach.
Our next update will be in July
We received mixed feedback on whether we should revert to quarterly determinations, after publishing annual determinations since 2020. We have decided to publish quarterly determinations in the short to medium term due to the increased volatility in mill gate prices. This will allow us to monitor changes in cost components and reflect recent market conditions in the determined price.
The ATO publishes CPI-adjusted fuel excise from 1 February and 1 August every year. We will transition the timing of our price determinations in 2023 to better align with these updates. Our next determination will be in July 2023.