The commodity argument doesn’t work for me for the following reasons.
Gold, unlike petroleum based fuels, is purely a luxury item. Nobody really needs to buy gold for the preservation of the lifestyle, even a relatively basic lifestyle, whereas fuel is pretty much an essential item.
If the price of wheat goes up, a pack of wheatabix won’t suddenly increase while on the shelves, the same should stand for petrol/diesel once it’s distributed to the station.
Petrol and diesel are inelastic goods, the demand doesn’t decrease significantly even if prices change significantly. For example if all government duties disappeared overnight, people wouldn’t suddenly start driving massively more than they do now, likewise, if the reverse happens people will only reduce their driving habits if the costs exceed their ability to fund the fuel.
Gold doesn’t come with duties attached. The existence of government duties to restrict demand wouldn’t exist on the commodities markets.
While I appreciate many goods are traded as commodities, they aren’t done so as a retail item. It can be traded as a commodity between extraction companies and even investors but once it hits the retailer it then becomes a retail product in exactly the same way as a tin of beans. Thus, if you can’t mark up a tin of beans when there’s a massive weather crisis, the same applies for stocked fuels.
Finally, you don’t extract petrol from tanks to move to a company willing to pay more than your retail customers.
I kind of understand the argument but there’s a difference between trading in the same way as any other commodity and retail, once a commodity becomes a retail item, its price is then fixed.
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Mark