Toowoomba motorists filling up for less at Pearl Energy’s first city service station, with plans for second location detected
Motorists have been flooding Toowoomba’s newest service station to take advantage of its regularly cheap prices and the company behind it appears to have plans for another location.
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John Round has stopped filling up at the big-brand service stations and hopes more motorists vote with their wallets to stop what he says is price-gouging at the bowser.
He fills up at the new Harlaxton outlet of growing fuel provider Pearl Energy, which also looks set to move into another prominent Toowoomba site.
“I tell everybody, come up here and get your fuel,” Mr Round said.
“I have a gardening business, and I send (my workers) up here to fill up because it’s so much cheaper.”
The Sydney-based fuel operator has been busy since it opened last month, not long after Toowoomba’s average fuel price hit a record high of 164 cents per litre.
The Pearl Energy outlet is regularly among the cheapest for fuel in Toowoomba, along with two Metco service stations in Newtown.
While not having the same brand recognition as Shell or BP, Pearl is hoping to have up to 100 servos across Australia by the end of this year, including up to two in the Darling Downs. Council planning documents show Pearl Energy will likely be the operator of developer Keith Beer’s upcoming service station on the corner of Tor and Taylor Streets.
Developer Rob Weymouth, who helped deliver the Harlaxton outlet, said the introduction of another cheap fuel outlet would help drive down price fluctuations.
“It’s better for the consumer — on opening day, (Pearl) was $1.21, and it was 40c a litre cheaper than the nearest competitor,” he said.
“What it will do is force the opposition to look at the pricing structure, because they will lose market share.
“Bit by bit, it will change that mysterious price cycle.”
The Pearl and Metco servos were selling e10 unleaded for 119 cents a litre yesterday, about 10c cheaper than most of their Toowoomba competitors.
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