But the anger of waiting motorists grew more visible this afternoon when the BP station, rapidly running out of fuel, raised its price to $1.39 a litre. "We're just trying to be competitive," said one of the staff. "We're a family orientated business and we're just trying to survive."

He said the business couldn't continue to take so much money out of its own pockets, it needed to remain competitive and $1.39 was still a competitive price. Earlier, the station's manager said: "We are a small business in this area and the [big] companies are fighting small businesses out of the market. "We are trying to survive ... this is our voice; let people hear about it."

United, also on Sunnyholt Road, dropped its price to 94.9 cents a litre this morning, but called off the protest this afternoon and stopped selling when it almost ran out of fuel. A delivery is expected soon. Police were trying to control traffic flow but said it was close to gridlock.

Carl Partridge, 21, was given leave by his boss to go and fill up quickly while the price was still below $1. But 2½ hours later he was still in the queue and the price had gone up 40 cents a litre. "I'm pretty pissed off," he said. "They shouldn't be allowed to do it. They put it down to 99 cents. They should do it for the rest of the day, not just for whenever they feel like it ... it's unfair."

He said he had seen at least six verbal fights in the queue. "It's not a pretty sight," he said. Navneet Kaur, also 21, lined up for more than an hour. She joined the queue when prices were 94 cents, but as she neared the front they had reached more than $1.39.

She saved about $6 on a tank that would usually have cost her $70. "I was so angry, it was ridiculous ... it wasn't worth the wait."



Ron Bowden, chief executive of the Service Station Association, encouraged the small stations to challenge the big companies.



"The number of service stations are declining and that's principally because of the encroachment of big business, particularly from supermarkets," he said. "The supermarkets have changed the whole nature of the industry and have led to a lot of closures and will lead to more closures in the future.

"If this is an exercise in trying to publicise the plight of the small independents then good on them because they need all the help they can get." Mr Bowden said it was unlikely the stations could have continued their statement for very long because they were subsidising the price by more than 40 cents a litre.

"The longer they do and the more the message gets out, the more motorists can take the benefits," he said. Petrol prices are 30 cents a litre higher than they were this time last year, Woolworths chief executive Michael Luscombe said. Mr Luscombe said today his petrol stations had used the price rise to grab market share from rivals in the past three months, luring motorists with a 4 cents a litre discount if they spend $30 in stores as part of the shopper docket scheme.

While sales of petrol across all station operators were down 5 per cent by volume in the past three months - compared with the same period a year ago - Woolworths has increased its sales (by volume) by 2 per cent. The company has sold $1.7 billion worth of fuel in the past three months at more than 522 of its petrol stations, he said.

Last financial year Woolworths sold $5.6 billion worth of fuel. - with Vanda Carson

