Petrol Prices (answer)

[Wraggy]

Just had this email through , makes interesting reading if we can manage it .
See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced
with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain
day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil
companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to
hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an
inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever thought
of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to
think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive
action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers.
With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to
take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come
down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol!
And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest
oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.


If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce
their prices. If they reduce their prices, the
other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we
need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's
really simple to do!!

Now, don't wimp out at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how
simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to
at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at
least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached
over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been
contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it...
..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and
not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends
this email
out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next
8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE
RANGE

It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your
petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e.
boycott BP and Esso

[Kopite]

i'm sure someone else posted that a while back???

[telboy]

I buy 99% of my fuel at morrisons anyway, so that will be easy to achieve. Mainly because its around 3p cheaper round here to buy it from them.

[Alfonzo]

Possibly the worst idea I've heard since somebody suggested using Marmite as Diff lubricant..

The vast majority of the price of petrol is TAX. That is the governments depmartment, not the oil companies. So the government is where efforts would have to be focused, perhaps banning Futures Trading on petroleum.

But rest assured, if they drop the tax on fuel they will raise it elsewhere as the government is practically bankrupt.

Happy Days

[Nick Goodall]

I've seen a similar mail going round for a few years now but obviously people either don't do it, or it doesn't work :-(

I for one avoid BP and Esso purely as the two closest to me and cheapest are Sainsbury's, shell and Texaco but i guess most people just don't worry about it??

Maybe there's also that bit of reverse psychology also in that if BP and Esso see a slight reduction in useage they up their prices to make more on the business they do get?? I guess the problem is most of the service stations seem to be BP so the money they make alone probably helps a massive amount to the disgusing profits they make as people stop there are mainly company car drivers who don't pay for their fuel or have a BP fuel card etc, plus service stations charge more for everything anyway and i guess there's also a lot of cases where people NEED fuel at that moment so have to stop wherever they can?

[Nick Goodall]

Originally Posted by Alfonzo

Possibly the worst idea I've heard since somebody suggested using Marmite as Diff lubricant..

The vast majority of the price of petrol is TAX. That is the governments depmartment, not the oil companies. So the government is where efforts would have to be focused, perhaps banning Futures Trading on petroleum.

But rest assured, if they drop the tax on fuel they will raise it elsewhere as the government is practically bankrupt.

Happy Days

Yeah the tax is really OTT but the profits that most of the Oil companies is still through the roof and breaking records every year so something is obviously still not right.....

[Kopite]

who do you think Sainsburys, Tesco, Morrisons etc get their fuel from???

[sosidge]

This same email was being sent around during the last fuel protests (remember the shock then at petrol reaching £1 a litre?).

It makes no sense whatsoever to only boycott Esso and BP.

Most likely this bit of spam came from the desk of Shell's chief executive.

If you want to use market forces to cut the cost of fuel - stop buying it! Use your feet (or bike/bus/train) for more journeys, cut out the unnecessary car journeys, get rid of your gas-guzzler and buy something fuel efficient.

[Nick Goodall]

Originally Posted by Kopite

who do you think Sainsburys, Tesco, Morrisons etc get their fuel from???

Doh! BP!

http://www.petrolprices.com/sainsburys.html

[Southwell]

I only go to shell, unless im on fumes.

[Nick Goodall]

This is quite interesting - posted on Lycos:

I used to work for this industry and can confirm that the supermarkets buy their petrol from the same refineries as the major brands such as Shell and Esso but, they are not the same petrol / diesel. It is the additives that differentiate between the branded products and the not quite so good quality supermarket own brands. I’m surprised to say there is no branding on the tankers you see delivering the petrol to your supermarket though. They are commonly branded with the name of a petrol company. This is because they are no longer owned by the petrol companies so can transport fuel for who ever they want and you frequently see branded tankers delivering to supermarkets but they do not contain the same fuel.

All fuels come from the same refinery (s) and are essentially the same, the difference is in the additives. At our local oil terminal at Buncefield in Hemel Hempstead (scene of the recent fire), petrol is received by pipeline from BP, Total/Fina and Shell refineries.
Each type of fuel is kept in the separate brands at the terminal, they don’t have special tanks for fuel destined for supermarkets.

The tankers are filled from the appropriate tanks regardless of their destination but the additives are added before the tanker leaves the depot. All fuels have additives included … the difference is that the branded petrol has additives that enhance the performance and the supermarket petrol has additives to make it cheaper. Mineral oil is often added to diesel fuel for example. There is a maximum level of contamination of mineral oil permitted and the supermarkets regard this as a standard and not a maximum.

If you think that supermarket petrol is the same as from your branded fuel supplier, remember the damage to people’s cars caused by using Tesco and Morrisons petrol last year. The reason for this was that it was made using reclaimed/scrap toluene solvent which had been used to wash PCBs in electronics factories. No reputable oil companies were involved in that scandal as I’m sure none of them would use a cut price additive such as this.

[antnee]

We just need a tax on people coming in the country (like turkey does), only have job seekers allowence for 6months and any one who wants to claim benifits needs to go for an interview. Also anyone that needs an interpreter should have to pay for one themselves, like every other country does!!

Sorted!

O one other thing, motorways should become autobahns

[Kopite]

Originally Posted by Nick Goodall

This is quite interesting - posted on Lycos:

I used to work for this industry and can confirm that the supermarkets buy their petrol from the same refineries as the major brands such as Shell and Esso but, they are not the same petrol / diesel. It is the additives that differentiate between the branded products and the not quite so good quality supermarket own brands. I’m surprised to say there is no branding on the tankers you see delivering the petrol to your supermarket though. They are commonly branded with the name of a petrol company. This is because they are no longer owned by the petrol companies so can transport fuel for who ever they want and you frequently see branded tankers delivering to supermarkets but they do not contain the same fuel.

All fuels come from the same refinery (s) and are essentially the same, the difference is in the additives. At our local oil terminal at Buncefield in Hemel Hempstead (scene of the recent fire), petrol is received by pipeline from BP, Total/Fina and Shell refineries.
Each type of fuel is kept in the separate brands at the terminal, they don’t have special tanks for fuel destined for supermarkets.

The tankers are filled from the appropriate tanks regardless of their destination but the additives are added before the tanker leaves the depot. All fuels have additives included … the difference is that the branded petrol has additives that enhance the performance and the supermarket petrol has additives to make it cheaper. Mineral oil is often added to diesel fuel for example. There is a maximum level of contamination of mineral oil permitted and the supermarkets regard this as a standard and not a maximum.

If you think that supermarket petrol is the same as from your branded fuel supplier, remember the damage to people’s cars caused by using Tesco and Morrisons petrol last year. The reason for this was that it was made using reclaimed/scrap toluene solvent which had been used to wash PCBs in electronics factories. No reputable oil companies were involved in that scandal as I’m sure none of them would use a cut price additive such as this.

confirmed by my old man who works for Shell

[Alfonzo]

Originally Posted by Nick Goodall

Yeah the tax is really OTT but the profits that most of the Oil companies is still through the roof and breaking records every year so something is obviously still not right.....

Indeed, but you have to understand - even if they reduced their prices by something relatively massive - say 25%, the cost of fuel at the pump would not change by anything like that amount.

The cost of oil is ramping because of many factors, speculative trading being one of the nastier ones plus increased demand from other countries. Basically, there isn't enough to go round so we will have to get used to it.

[Nick Goodall]

Originally Posted by Alfonzo

Indeed, but you have to understand - even if they reduced their prices by something relatively massive - say 25%, the cost of fuel at the pump would not change by anything like that amount.

The cost of oil is ramping because of many factors, speculative trading being one of the nastier ones plus increased demand from other countries. Basically, there isn't enough to go round so we will have to get used to it.

Until we get really desperate and start hacking down the New Forest you mean There is a fair amount of oil there apparently but it's never been worth ruining the whole area for (yet)!!

[Lee]

The UK gets virtually no oil from the north sea, it mainly comes in from places like baku and the CIS now, it is cheaper to do that than spend millions on getting the dregs from the north sea. This is the theory anyway.

In reality there is as much oil under the north sea as there was when they first hit upon it back in the 60`s and 70`s, they keep finding new fields of oil and gas all the time. But it does require some extraction where as back in the early days it would come up under its own pressure, now we have to pump gas down into the well to create that pressure, that costs £££ but it is still profitable, just not as profitable as moving out to iraq, baku etc. There will be very little paid in the way of tax over there either as there is a lot of corruption within the governments and things are let go for a bit of cash.

It is also rumoured that bandits were employed by a major oil company in nigeria (beginns with S ends in hell) to come aboard a platform and take a few hostages for a number of days in a bid to deter other oil companies setting up in those waters.

I dont like paying inflated prices for oil etc and it is the government who are shafting us. Oil has not increase by 30% since christmas but the price at the pump has

[Alfonzo]

I guess if they're planning on ripping up the North and South Poles, the New Forest might be fair game!

As an aside - I drove a Ethanol powered car our in Sweden last weekend. It drove just like a petrol but we got hardly any mileage from the tank, I'm guessing something like half of what it would have been on petrol. Bugger.

[sosidge]

Originally Posted by Alfonzo

As an aside - I drove a Ethanol powered car our in Sweden last weekend. It drove just like a petrol but we got hardly any mileage from the tank, I'm guessing something like half of what it would have been on petrol. Bugger.

And ethanol/biofuel production is driving up the price of wheat/corn - causing food riots in some developing countries!

There just aren't enough resources in the world for the number of people that want them any more. All it takes is a bad harvest and/or some funny business by OPEC and the world's economy is up the creek!

The only solution is for us to consume less - sod this "ethical consumer" nonsense - just try and get by on less stuff. It's cheaper that way too.

[Alfonzo]

Hit the nail on the head there. Consume less - yup, especially when you look at all the fatties about

[terry.sc]

Originally Posted by Lee

I dont like paying inflated prices for oil etc and it is the government who are shafting us. Oil has not increase by 30% since christmas but the price at the pump has

Yet in that time the government hasn't put up the fuel duty at all, so that points the blame in the direction of the fuel companies and especially the fuel speculators - so why is everyone screaming at the government about the rising cost of fuel? No one seems to be shouting about the government doing something about the rising cost of groceries.
We are paying around the same amount of tax on fuel as they do in Germany, Finland, Belgium, but not as much as Sweden.

Originally Posted by Alfonzo

The vast majority of the price of petrol is TAX. That is the governments depmartment, not the oil companies. So the government is where efforts would have to be focused, perhaps banning Futures Trading on petroleum.

Currently 53.65 pence of a litre of unleaded is fuel duty, so currently less than half the price we pay. Usually the vat is added to that to give a much higher figure to throw at the government but we pay vat on most things, no one moans about paying 17.5% vat on TVs, DVDs, the car you put the fuel in, etc. so although over half WAS duty thanks to the oil companies (and OPEC can't/won't supply the demand) duty is no longer over half what we pay at the pump.

Why does this country always scream at the government to do something instead of doing something themselves? If you don't like the cost of fuel get a more economical car.
I had a job which meant a 300 mile per week journey and a big sports coupe that was lucky to manage 25 mpg. I did the sensible thing and swapped it for a little diesel that did 60mpg instead. Now I'm working nearer home I've swapped it for something with a big engine again as I can afford to run it. It's not economical but if fuel prices keep on going up I'll swap it for something cheaper to run, not sit and moan about how expensive it is.

And voting out Labour won't help, it was the Tories before them that pushed duty up so high in the first place. If labour hadn't abandoned the tories fuel escalator policy we would be paying at least another 20p per litre.