Petrol prices

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Filonian
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Petrol prices

Post by Filonian »

Got this from one of my friends - it sounds like good sense to me !


We are hitting 95p a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with
paying £1 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 whimp out on me 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 MILLIONPEOPLE!!!
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


Graham
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migeater0
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Post by migeater0 »

I only buy from Shell and Tesco anyway, they're the closest and cheapest!
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Sl4yer
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Post by Sl4yer »

With the government taking 50p per litre, a 69p selling price is probably unachievable.

My old diesel car is now taking a 50/50 mix of veg oil and diesel, equating to about 75p per litre. :smile:

James

kit
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Post by kit »

95p/litre? :lol:

Don't make me laugh, around here it's in the 97p range and has been for ages, and there's one local station, the last before you get to the M48, where they have been selling at 99p for ages now.

Not to me though!

The Motorway service areas are well into the 98-99p range countrywide as far as I can see. Quite where 95p comes from I'm not sure, but I'd love to see it. My local Tesco is in visible range from my front door though, so they get about 40% of my business, the rest just has to come from where I happen to be at the time, at 1000 miles a week I can't be that choosy sadly.
Regards
Kit

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RAF_Quantum
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Post by RAF_Quantum »

Hi,

You don't necessarily know whose petrol you are buying anywhere. Most often, supermarkets etc will buy fuel from the nearest ditribution depot and the fuel will most likely be from the nearest refinery. Supermarkets will change supplier when contracts come up for renewal if there is a better deal.

From the cost of a litre of fuel at 95.1p the total cost in tax is 63.7p. This leaves 31.4p left over. So where is this 31.4p 'spent' ?

Well, first of all the crude oil has to be discovered. Once it is discovered then the well has to be developed. Once the well has been developed it has to be transported. Once it is transported it has to be stored. Once it is stored it has to be refined. Before it can be refined, refineries have to be built. Once the products are refined they have to be cleaned of environmentally harmful contaminants like sulphur. Once the product has been cleaned it has to be distributed to the consumers. Consumers demand ease of purchase so distribution points have to be built - aka petrol stations. The petrol retailers/franchisees and the oil companies like to do business at a profit like any other business so there will be a small profit margin. All this infrastructure has to be maintained at considerable cost. Oil wells are not bottomless pits so exploration is a continueing expense.

Call me biased maybe as I work for an oil company. Taxation is the biggest issue. The 'vision' that petrol can be forced down to 69p is only possible if fuel duty is reduced and I don't think anyone can see that happening.

The only way to keep the price lower is to search out the lowest price in your area and spend your dosh there. You could perhaps petition the govt/Gordon B to reduce duty but I think it will fall on deaf ears

Rgds

John
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Sl4yer
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Post by Sl4yer »

kit wrote:95p/litre? :lol:

Don't make me laugh, around here it's in the 97p range and has been for ages, and there's one local station, the last before you get to the M48, where they have been selling at 99p for ages now.
I used to work down there, and the petrol is much more expensive than it is around the bigger cities. Petrol is about 93p around here (Manchester area) at the moment.

On the plus side though, car insurance in the forest is about half what it is around here!

James

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Nigel H-J
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Post by Nigel H-J »

It is an excellent idea but.......the cost of petrol itself taking away VAT and the Governments' share, is not as expensive in real terms than you probably think.

http://www.petrolprices.com/price-of-petrol.html

For full price checks in your area go here as well:

http://www.petrolprices.com/

So basically petrol selling at 90p a litre would mean the actual cost of the product is only 23.2p not exactly a bank breaking amount.

I believe the problem lies squarely on the amount of taxes we have to pay as this product is taxed twice!!! One being VAT and the other the Goverment who knows full well that this is one area where they can obtain a great deal of revenue for the treasury.

I could in fact add more to this subject but feel that it may become a political issue and don't really want to go down that road.........yet!! :lol:

All I will say is that the Government have not done anything productive in offering hard up motorists an alternative option to the car. Trains are becoming an unaffordable commodity and as for the buses....OK in the towns and cities but for folk living in the rural areas......that is another story!!!! :sad:

Nigel.
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BAe146
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Post by BAe146 »

I'm glad my truck is a flexfuel! I can fill up with E85 (85% Ethanol) for only $2.40/ gal. I save about $12-14 each tank, than I would with regular gas (Currently $3.10/gal).
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Chris Trott
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Post by Chris Trott »

I'm glad to see there's people in the UK with some sense about this whole thing as well. There's 2 problems with oil production/procurement in the system now that inflates the price more than anything -

1) Commodity trading. Crude Oil *AND* Gasoline (Petrol) are both traded as commodities on the world commodity market. This means that twice there are traders involved and they are driven by one factor - profit. They have to trade what they have for higher than they bought it. If the supply is unstable, they demand a higher price because of it. As such, any time there's unrest in the world, no matter who causes it, price goes up. Any time demand goes up, price goes WAY up because the suppliers want to make sure they have enough on hand to last if the supply stops for any reason.

2) Taxation. In the US, taxes make up about 40% of the price of gasoline. In the UK and Europe, it's more like 60% (as the website mentioned above shows). The major difference between the US and Europe is that VAT is a percentage of total cost (after the duty tax). In the US, the tax is fixed, although some states have a tax that is adjusted yearly based on inflation, but during the year it is constant.

What most people don't understand as well is that the largest reason for cost increase is not the war in Iraq. It's the demand in Asia. Asia's demand for oil is growing so fast that NO ONE can keep up. In the US, our refineries and production are running in excess of 95%. That means that if *ANY* refinery shuts down (as happened recently in Oklahoma due to the flooding) we'll get a major price spike because supply is suddenly almost even with demand. In the UK, your supply of oil for refining is the biggest problem. Most of the North Sea production is going to Asia, not the UK or the continent. In the US, all of the oil in the Alaska Pipeline goes to Japan of all places. Why? Because it can be sold at a larger profit there than domestically. That's the trade off you make by having a global economy. Companies must look for the best profit because if they don't, someone else will and they will then buy you out or shut you down.

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Captain Pugwash
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Post by Captain Pugwash »

having just spent two and a half years in the fuel buisness here in canada, i can say that your plan is good but will not work. the reason being is that imperial oil (esso ) and the other big players supply all the small guys. here in ottawa there are three terminals shell, petrocanada and esso. all supplied from the same refinery in montreal via a one pipe line. esso then supplies , esso stations, canadian type ( independent ), sunnies ( independent ), irving oil ( partners in crime ), Mr gas ( independent ) and so on.
the same is done in the uk and as such the big companies have the control of who they want to sell to. the only people you realy hurt is the garage owners. their profit margine is very small. the goverments keep it that way.
i belive many years ago the farmers and whives blockaded the main refineries and this made the goverment stand up and listern for a short time. over here we see the price of fuel change every hour. at midnight it is the most expensive, then during the day the price will fall by a small amount. then by ten in the evening it has reached it's cheapest price.
the only way to hurt is to buy less. the production line has to keep up at a certain flow and if everyone was buying less the bulk farms would fill rather quickly and then they have to get the product out. if nobody is buying in bulk then there stuck with it. this happens once a month here as everyone will not fill their cars.
when the price drops below the $1.05 per litre to .95, people will buy again.

the us are currently buying up as much oil from canada as they can get their hands on. Alberta has as much if not more oil than saudia arabia. due to the development of the oil sands. that's one reason the canadian doller has taken off in the money markets. today the us and canadian doller nearly matched. .98c canadian to $1 us doller.

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