The cost of petrol !!

[UBT - bobuk]

This came in an e-mail to me today......
See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it
b.
____________________________________________

We are hitting £106.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1.10 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  a ggressive 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  

_____________________________________________

b.

[UBT - Terry]

Bob Thats brill think you should be up for most interesting post award and I'm not taking the p**s either,Im certainly gonna circulate this one exelent.


  Terry

[UBT - mickyb69]

Great post bob .
I hope everyone does it because even at $100 a barrel its still way too high a
price for petrol.
One 42 gallon  $100 barrel makes about 20 gals of petrol ,7 gals of diesel and loads of bits and bobs ...
so thats 90 litres @ £1.04 =£93.60
and 31 litres @ £1.07 =£33.70
So without makeup and milk bottles =£127.30

giving them a grand total of $249.03
I guess someones making lots of money from us
 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[UBT - Timbo]

....I guess someones making lots of money from us
 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Not wishing to take anything away from your maths, but you also have to consider:

1) The barrel of oil is CRUDE oil - before the refining process.
2) The "on sale" price is for petrol & diesel - ie oil AFTER it has been refined.
3) The difference between the $100 a barrel price for crude and the $249 price for the resulting "refined" products, has to take into account:

- Transporting the crude from source to refinery
- The refining process
- The refinery profit margin
- Transporting the refined product from refinery to outlet
- The transport company profit
- The petrol station profit
- VAT and specific taxes on fuel (probably the single highest %age)

(I might have missed out the odd step here)

Obviously, if you wanted to cut out the middle man, I wish you luck with refining your $100 barrel of crude  - I doubt you would save much !!

As a consequence, I would say that the prospect of avoiding certain petrol stations is not really going to help.

The driving forces that are forcing up pump prices are:
- the "fuel escalator" as the UK Govt squeezes even more out of us all),
- OPEC (who are making hay, while they still have some oil left - and as it runs out, so its scarcity will make Mad Max look like a school play) and
- the "Market" that seems to latch onto any bad news by pushing up most commodity prices (look at the price of copper now - and the reports of people nicking lead off church roofs).

regards

Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

T.....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!!!

Somehow, I think this math is wrong.

For instance, in any one group of people who, lets say, all receive this email originally - the likelihood is that they will just forward the email to their own group of friends.

And as they've all received it the first time, all this will do is to clog up the internet with loads of what is essentially spam, thereby wasting useful bandwidth.

A far better way, would be to set up a forum and publish a useful posting that people can find on Google and then comment on it and spread the word via normal communications, like chatting to someone down the pub.

This is how most humans communicate, after all.

If there's enough comments made, then a website could be set up, publicising the idea and leading to possible "mass action", if the idea sounds workable (and lawful).

You could then provide some banners to display on other websites, take out advertising, get some corporate sponsors, appoint a Chief Executive, get listed on the Stock Exchange, give some money to a political party, become a party spokesman, get elected to Parliament, put your idea into practice, become world renowned for your achievement, get a Knighthood, and.....

Spewing out hundreds of emails to friends might not make you the most popular person within any group...!

regards

Tim

[UBT - Rick Horn]

Don`t forget that about 70% of the UK petrol and diesel costs are down to tax.
Perhaps we should all barricade Whitehall with our cars and trucks, and leave them all until the government reduces these taxes to a more sensible level.

[UBT - mickyb69]

Don`t forget that about 70% of the UK petrol and diesel costs are down to tax.
Perhaps we should all barricade Whitehall with our cars and trucks, and leave them all until the government reduces these taxes to a more sensible level.

They would make more money on parking fines  :lol:
As for production costs and transport ...Its a mass market so the running cost
would be very small  :lol:

[Sir Cracked of the Mind]

Well I don't go with boycotting BP/ESSO, I used to work for them and they still have my pension.

It sounds like one of those good ideas, until you look at the facts of the market, most 'independent'  petrol stations buy from the majors anyway, the international oil markets set the price, not the oil compaines, it is the demand from growing economies like China & India that is driving the price not a deliberate shortage created by OPEC or the oil majors.

As the UK govenment learnt over the EMF you can't buck the market, if you won't buy they will find someone who will..

[UBT - Timbo]

As for production costs and transport ...Its a mass market so the running cost
would be very small  :lol:

Hi,

If you take $100 as being the cost of the crude at source and assume that the 6 "parties" all make (say) a 5% profit on their prime cost (which is pretty low, but reasonable for say a "volume market"), then the $100 basic cost would increase to $136 at the petrol pump BEFORE Gordon added his fuel duty and VAT.

And given that the Govt. adds (say) a 70% tax, then that 70% is $95....

Add the two together and you get: $231...that's not too far off the $249 price quoted before...

So, you shouldn't be sniffling at the middle men for making their 5%'s....there's other players who are making more out of oil, specifically the traders (who obviously have to buy a new Ferrari every year) and the UK Govt.

regards,

Tim

[Depresion]

I believe this is the third or forth year this has been running for and it's had no impact so far. Then again as has been said when we are taxed at 235% on the pump price. (You have to love the way the press report tax on fuel as a percentage of price paid rather than the normal way as a percentage of cost before tax (or we would say VAT is 14.9% not 17.5%)).

[UBT - mickyb69]

Your probs right about BP and esso being a waste of time if you take my area for instance.
Years ago there was a report into shell petrol when they said (shell) petrol was better .
Its all the same until they put a magic chemical in the tanker on the way to the petrol station.
When you drive past the petrol storage tanks near Kingsbury Tamworth you will see Jet,Shell,Esso and a number of local firms tankers filling up .
The fact is we the car drivers are easy targets and theres nothing we can do .
Local transport ??? Theres 7 busses a day in my area Mon~Fri and 4 on saturday ,Forget sunday....Rural area ??? 10 miles from Coventry 16 from Brum ...
I can get anywhere in the country on train due to being 5 miles from Nuneaton ...as long as i get in a taxi or car  first .

 :shock:  :shock:

[melter65]

The high price of oil is a double edged sword in the specialised steel industry. When prices are high the oil companies tend to invest in new oilfields and new equipment, meaning they order more of the stuff made from the steel that I make. Of course transport costs increase as we ship more steel to be made into oilfield components, but we have to make money while the boom lasts.

When the price of oil drops there is no investment and companies like ours start closing down and the lower price of oil never gets passed on the consumer anyway!

[cris keys]

As a manager at a petrol station I can say that E-mail is slightly insane. There is no money to be made in fuel at all. The oil companies make about 1p per litre sold, and the petrol station will make another 1p on top of that.
We have to sell 125 litres of fuel to make the same profit as one cup of coffee sold  :shock:
The real problem is with the government taking 70p a litre in tax, if you remove the tax we actually have the cheapest fuel in Europe. The best way to solve the problem is to vote in politicians that will lower the fuel duties.

[UBT - Timbo]

.... The real problem is with the government taking 70p a litre in tax, if you remove the tax we actually have the cheapest fuel in Europe. The best way to solve the problem is to vote in politicians that will lower the fuel duties.

Hi Cris,

So, if Govt takes 70p on the current rate (say) of £1.10, that means your profit comes out of the 40p that's left....?

If so, then I'll need to re-calculate my workings above...!!

regards

Tim

[Depresion]

The government was taking 72p/l at ~£1 when they put the 2p/l on in October(? November?) last year, as there is the flat rate fuel duty and then VAT an extra 10p/l puts 1.75p/l in tax.

As for there being no money to be made in petrol the likes of Esso, BP and Shell make profits of £90m a day.

[Sir Cracked of the Mind]

You can't just say someone makes £x per day you need to compare that with the investment made, etc.

and why do you blame the oil companies for the price of petrol, and not the gas companies for the price of gas or the power companies for the price of electricity?

You don't hear about gas boycotts or picketing power stations when they raise their prices....to reflect the price they pay for the raw material.

[UBT - mickyb69]

I think the oil companies and our government  are all crooks.
Shell 14 billion profit ????
I know they have to invest but what are doing .....Buying a small country ?

[Sir Cracked of the Mind]

Yes! and funding my pension when I get it.......stop complaining and give them your money I need it!

[UBT - Timbo]

I think the oil companies and our government  are all crooks.
Shell 14 billion profit ????
I know they have to invest but what are doing .....Buying a small country ?

Hi Micky,

From what I saw on the BBC News tonight, the UK Govt stands to rake in £9 bn in taxes based on the Shell profits.

So, apart from raking in £30 bn per year from the taxes on petrol/diesel, they also get this £9 bn from Shell and no doubt more from other fuel firms, when they announce their results.

And what do the MP's do? Give themselves a pay rise and then some of them employ their own families who might be for doing nothing (if the Tory who's been kicked out is typical) which WE have to pay for through all these stealth taxes......

Time to get a new Govt, methinks....

regards

Tim

[Grinning Grunny]

Two things that really gets up my nose (and several other places as well) is that the government wants us to use to public transport, what public transport? We never see a bus where we live, the nearest stop is 6 miles away. If the other 1/4 and me (the diet worked) wanted to get to to London in a hurry the train fare would be 340 for the 2 of us.

Secondly there should be a law against paying tax on tax, you pay for the fuel that has duty on it, then they put VAT on the whole lot.

 :evil:  :evil:  :evil:  :evil:

[melter65]

Good point, Grunny! Why are we paying VAT on petrol? It's hardly a luxury item anymore. We all need it to get to work and back. It annoys me that when I fill the car up, paying £50 (used to be £40!) the cashier asks if I want a VAT receipt! Who can claim VAT back on their petrol bills?

[UBT - mickyb69]

Exxon Mobil's staggering $40.6 billion earnings for 2007 drive the truth home: There's no business on the planet that gushes forth more profit than selling oil—nothing even close.

Feeding off the poor  :x
$100 a barrel .......  :x  :x
Wish i had a shell pension  :lol:

Secondly there should be a law against paying tax on tax, you pay for the fuel that has duty on it, then they put VAT on the whole lot.

How about the tax on the tax on the tax as in income tax ?  :oops:
And while im at it ..public transport ....
Nuneaton to london ....
Virgin trains cost £250 for 2 tickets ...
Taxi costs £85
Car costs £25
  Lets all use public transport ...yeh great if you live and work in a city ..  :shock:

[Sir Cracked of the Mind]

It's terrierablllleeeee, havve yoooooou sen whaaaaat happened to th e price of meths... if it goes any higher iiiii willl have to startt drinknking allkahole...


UBT - Mikeb69 at work