Petrol prices a crude con -: "Petrol prices a crude con"

Brian Lynch's letter (April 27) highlighted the nature of the system by which our petrol is priced. He mentions quite correctly our crude is mostly "local" and yet the pricing system means there is no benefit for motorists.

Australia is swimming in natural gas. Vehicles can easily operate on compressed natural gas (that's CNG - not to be confused with liquefied petroleum gas, which is a by-product of the refining process).

Do we have any national initiatives to use our local CNG to lower our transport costs? Not really, but we gladly sell our natural gas by the tanker load to foreign customers for a few cents a litre. Further, our natural gas is reticulated to many Australian homes for heating and cooking purposes. All that is needed is a suitable compressor (okay, it's a special multi-stage compressor) and we could refuel our cars at home from the same pipeline that runs our central heating. Now, wouldn't the oil majors and the tax man love that.

Peter Henery, Blackburn, Vic.