A Caltex sign is seen at a petrol station in Melbourne April 22, 2010. Caltex Australia Ltd, the country's largest refiner, said on Thursday its short-term refiner margin outlook remains challenging, however it was optimistic about its medium to long-term
A Caltex sign is seen at a petrol station in Melbourne April 22, 2010. Reuters/Mick Tsikas

Caltex Australia (ASX: CTX) is up for higher annual profit, thanks to the gains in both marketing and refining. This also comes at a time when the industry is under fire from gaining at the expense of motorists, with Caltex previously facing proceedings under the ACCC.

Caltex Australia's stock rose at its highest close from March, surging six percent at $36.50. The optimistic results were all thanks to strong refinery operations, improvements in marketing profits and strong refining margins. Caltex reported that its bottom line net profit should be around $560 million and $580 million. This is up 29 times that the company revealed in 2014. The profit line is not as monitored since it deals mostly with fuel stockpiles and oil value.

Caltex's record outlook came out at a time when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) reviewed the company and other petrol retailers on their profit margins. ACCC claimed previously that the retail prices were not in line with crude oil prices. Retailers were not lowering the prices accordingly, thus high profit margins. Nonetheless, in a release from Caltex, the company announced that the watchdog already dropped the proceedings against it. ACCC discontinued the proceedings against retailers like Informed Sources and Caltex based on agreed undertakings.

According to Caltex, the company welcomes such decision. It also supports informing consumers on petrol prices. Furthermore, the company said that on top of petrol prices transparency, a framework was created to offer consumer based pricing service information to third party service providers. Information will come from fuel retailers.

Caltex added that it has been using the service to collect data on petrol prices, ensuring price competitiveness for consumers. Petrol price boards already provide the information, but the service allows a more cost-effective way of gathering the data.

"Caltex remains focused on reliably providing competitively priced, high quality fuel to consumers," said Bruce Rosengarten, Caltex's Executive General Manager Commercial.

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