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Speaker 1: Ex convenience petrol stations, which have been one of the

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Speaker 1: cheapest places for fuel in the last little while. When

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Speaker 1: prices go up and you have a look at the apps,

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Speaker 1: they're consistently cheaper, sometimes by just a few cents. Other times,

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Speaker 1: say when there's been a spike of ten twenty forty cents,

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Speaker 1: they're still at that lower level for a long time. Well,

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Speaker 1: BP has struck a deal to acquire mobile ex convenience

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Speaker 1: petrol stations. What's that going to look like moving forward?

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Speaker 1: Mark McKenzie, Australian convenience and petroleum marketers. He's at a

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Speaker 1: conference and a step don't really appreciate that, Mark, Thank

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Speaker 1: you and good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Morning Matthew.

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Speaker 1: What's the landscape going to look like in the future.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think what we're actually seeing down there is

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Speaker 2: a real shifting of the brands on the forecourt. So

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Speaker 2: you record, your listeners will recalled that BP was the

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Speaker 2: big supplier behind OTR and Viva, which is a shell

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Speaker 2: brand got an acquisition through last year, with a couple

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Speaker 2: of sites having to be shed as a result of

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Speaker 2: the eight sees consideration of that merger. So MET obviously

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Speaker 2: we're looking at, well, what do they do in relation

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Speaker 2: to their market. They certainly don't want to vacate South

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Speaker 2: Australian market. So there's been a lot of chatter on

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Speaker 2: the wire ever since the OTR acquisition, and what you

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Speaker 2: see today as the announcement that they've actually made a

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Speaker 2: bit and reached in principal agreement subject to authority approvals

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Speaker 2: to acquire the ex Convenience outlet. So really it's a

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Speaker 2: case of you're seeing the VP brand shift from the

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Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty six odd OTR stores that they've

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Speaker 2: previously been operating on and that will progressively change to

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Speaker 2: put their I suppose all their force behind the ex

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Speaker 2: convenience model.

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Speaker 1: I suppose too. Then it means ultimately when this goes

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Speaker 1: through and presumably they'll all be badged as VP, the

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Speaker 1: lower prices we've enjoyed for mobile X will disappear.

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Speaker 2: Well, not really, Matthew, I mean that's something that people

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Speaker 2: always worry about, but I think these big oil company

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Speaker 2: brands are actually recognizing that they need to be able

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Speaker 2: to compete. I mean, South Australia has been a really

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Speaker 2: interesting breeding ground in our industry. Over the last decade

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Speaker 2: or so. You've had two very strong family businesses, first

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Speaker 2: OTR and now Exconvenience that came in with an offering

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Speaker 2: that blended both fuel and non fuel offerings. That's been

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Speaker 2: one of the challenges with traditional fuel companies trying to

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Speaker 2: be able to expand beyond just doing fuel. So we've

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Speaker 2: now seen if you think about the whole country, we

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Speaker 2: had two very significant deals, both of them in South Australia,

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Speaker 2: and if you actually have a look at the strategy

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Speaker 2: behind what VP's trying to do, what I can see

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Speaker 2: in terms of the print is ex Convenience was attractive

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Speaker 2: because it had a very good store proposition, and if

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Speaker 2: you're selling a lot of non fuel products, that increases

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Speaker 2: your capacity to be able to discount fuel because these

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Speaker 2: are one business. I've got fuel and non fuel income,

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Speaker 2: and so if you've got a strong convenience offering, you

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Speaker 2: become an attractor. But it also means that the business

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Speaker 2: doesn't need to make as much profit from fuel. It'll

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Speaker 2: depend upon the pricing decisions of the businesses involved, but

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Speaker 2: I expect the a Triple C this will be subject

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Speaker 2: to the same rigorous assessment that we saw with the

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Speaker 2: Beaver OTR acquisition, and so they're going to have to

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Speaker 2: go through that approval process, so there'll be a consultation

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Speaker 2: before it's ratified, and I expect that'll be one of

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Speaker 2: the questions in terms of what will happen long term

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Speaker 2: to pricing in the market, will be one of the

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Speaker 2: things that the A Triple C will look at pretty closely.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so at this stage too, you wouldn't expect any

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Speaker 1: to close, would you, of either side, because maybe if

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Speaker 1: there's some next door to each other, perhaps, but I

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Speaker 1: don't think there's too many like that anyway.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. And I think potentially when

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Speaker 2: you look at the fact that they've come off a

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Speaker 2: much bigger footprint with the OTR brand right across South Australia,

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Speaker 2: they're not going to be in a situation where you've

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Speaker 2: got directly conflicting brands close to each other. And that's

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Speaker 2: one of the things that the A Triple C and

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Speaker 2: certainly we're interested in to make sure that dynamics of

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Speaker 2: competition so that all businesses get a fair shot at

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Speaker 2: the market.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, all right, we'll see where it ends up. Mark,

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Speaker 1: I know you've got to go back into a session.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for your.

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Speaker 2: Time, pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Matthew good on your mark McKenzie, Australian convenience and petroleum

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Speaker 1: marketers