Would the last person to leave please turn off the lights

[pcvman]

Please bare with me, maybe Im being a little stupid here, and before you all shout and be abusive to me, Petrol costs, Now I know the government takes a huge chunk in taxes but please explain how if even when the pound is weak against the rest of the world, and the price per barrel of oil is lower than 2009 that B.P announces today Quaterly Profits of 3.6 billion pounds.
and Shell 3.2 billoin pounds
surly it proves we are paying way over the odds for petrol and diesel even after just exiting the worst ressesion in histroy.

Now I drive a 1.4 fiesta, am on less than 20K a year and i can bearly afford to run my car, god knows what some of you are feeling with your bigger cars.

I feel if one of the party's want to win the next election start with the lowering of fuel prices.

nice views anyone.

[Mr Gear]

What's your daily commute?

Edited by Mr Gear on Wednesday 28th April 10:53

[Bullett]

The last time this came up people pointed out for companies like BP and Shell a very tiny amount of the profit is made from forecourt petrol sales.

[zakelwe]

Compare it to beer.

Beer is £3 per pint, £5 per litre or £24 per gallon !

Reason why you don't think beer is expensive enough to complain about? Because you don't have to drink 4 gallons per day. If you did you would be broke. Petrol is not too expensive, even with tax, it's just your car drinks too much of it.

Hic!

Andy

[Munter]

doogz said:

They're an oil company. Of course they're making a profit. And quite right too, it's not a crime.

It's the tax on fuel, that makes up most of the cost. BP can get you a litre of oil out the ground, refined, transported and put into the tank at the petrol station for what, 35p/litre? Don't blame them!

Yep they do it all cheaper than a company bottling water out of the local stream/well/tap and selling it in the same service stations.

Plus it's not BP setting the price for their oil they dig up. They sell offer it and people squabble over it and agree the price, then the exchange rate changes come in to play.

All BP really have to decide is "do we dig oil out the ground and sell it or not today", the rest is pretty much out of their hands.

[Moley RUFC]

Keep the profits up BP. Everytime I fill up my shares and ISA's go up too!

(Even better as I don't pay for the fuel either)

[ZOLLAR]

How much of that profit is from UK sales any way? remember they sell oil all over the world so there profits may be from sales in other countries, dosn't mean we're being ripped off we just have high tax on fuel in this country.

[pcvman]

dont get me wrong i have nothing against the companys making big money, hell if we left it to the government we would have nothing at all, i guess im trying to say that if say bp make 25pence per litre, and the seller makes 5 pence why does the government keep hiking up the price, years ago you would see a fixed price at the pumps for months, now it seems to go up every few days!!!

[Fatman2]

BP/Esso/Shell etc are an easy target and wrongly so IMHO as it detracts from the real problem.

Given that most of the fuel cost is duty then it is the government that should be the target. Fuel has gone up about 10 pence in the last 2-3 months and that's disgusting.

[Munter]

pcvman said:

dont get me wrong i have nothing against the companys making big money, hell if we left it to the government we would have nothing at all, i guess im trying to say that if say bp make 25pence per litre, and the seller makes 5 pence why does the government keep hiking up the price, years ago you would see a fixed price at the pumps for months, now it seems to go up every few days!!!

The gov doesn't fluctuate the price that much. The exchange rate and the price of oil do. The Gov puts it up once or twice a year.

The blue party have said they will stabilise the price by fluctuating fuel duty in response to price changes by the vendors. However that does mean the price could never drop...

[Dr_Gonzo]

pcvman said:

Please bare with me, maybe Im being a little stupid here, and before you all shout and be abusive to me, Petrol costs, Now I know the government takes a huge chunk in taxes but please explain how if even when the pound is weak against the rest of the world, and the price per barrel of oil is lower than 2009 that B.P announces today Quaterly Profits of 3.6 billion pounds.
and Shell 3.2 billoin pounds
surly it proves we are paying way over the odds for petrol and diesel even after just exiting the worst ressesion in histroy.

Now I drive a 1.4 fiesta, am on less than 20K a year and i can bearly afford to run my car, god knows what some of you are feeling with your bigger cars.

I feel if one of the party's want to win the next election start with the lowering of fuel prices.

nice views anyone.

You sir, are a cretin. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Do you have any idea how much capital in employed to make that return? Or how much have these companies had to spend in R&D, exploration etc to get that return?

Moaning about profits for huge companies when you only band around figures in pounds is just plain stupid.

In a recession, surely a company making a profit is a good thing? Perhaps you'd prefer it if they didn't make such profits and had to lay people off?

[pcvman]

well never mind, at least you wont catch me riding a push bike (im too lazy) or driving a prius (im too sensible)
thinking about it now lets see petrol £1.20 per litre
pint of beer £3.00 average
pint of milk £1.60 per average
fags pack of 20 £nearly 5.00
pack of mach 3 razor blades £1,000,000,00

assasintaion of governemnt £ pricless

[morebeanz]

pcvman said:

dont get me wrong i have nothing against the companys making big money, hell if we left it to the government we would have nothing at all, i guess im trying to say that if say bp make 25pence per litre, and the seller makes 5 pence why does the government keep hiking up the price, years ago you would see a fixed price at the pumps for months, now it seems to go up every few days!!!

You're off-beam there, old son. BP Sales for 2009 were £239Bn and around 5.9Bn barrels of refined product.

Doesn't quite equate to your expected 25p, does it!

I think you have to get to grips with just how big some of these companies are before you join the media bandwagon of quoting outraged numbers. The margins are massively tight, the investment period very long and profits uncertain.

[GT03ROB]

Why don't we just sticky this thread it came up yesterday, & the last time BP /Shell announced their results & the time before that. Even I'm getting bored of it now. Lets just accept some people don't get the scale of the oil business, never can, never will.

[Mr Gear]

pcvman said:

well never mind, at least you wont catch me riding a push bike (im too lazy)

Oh well, stop moaning then.

EDIT: fk me! Where are you getting your milk from? Is that bat milk you are drinking?

Edited by Mr Gear on Wednesday 28th April 11:27

[pcvman]

no my milk comes from a golden cow and the milk is refined through a rare gold butterfly wing whilst being held by a dodo on top of mount everest.
and yes i do not understand the full complexities of the oil business, i was mearly asking as i sat watching sky news for the pretty pictures and waiting for a pretty weather girl, when a scroll at the bottom announced both shell and bp profits,
and as i do drive a car, and have a say in who gets my vote, i was mearly asking you good folks on the issue with regards to some things that matter to me, im sorry if i am a simplton, and not some big wig hot shot with a degree in astro phiysics.

[Mr Gear]

pcvman said:

no my milk comes from a golden cow and the milk is refined through a rare gold butterfly wing whilst being held by a dodo on top of mount everest.
and yes i do not understand the full complexities of the oil business, i was mearly asking as i sat watching sky news for the pretty pictures and waiting for a pretty weather girl, when a scroll at the bottom announced both shell and bp profits,
and as i do drive a car, and have a say in who gets my vote, i was mearly asking you good folks on the issue with regards to some things that matter to me, im sorry if i am a simplton, and not some big wig hot shot with a degree in astro phiysics.

How to cut your fuel bills by 20%: Ride a bike into work once a week.

That's not astrophysics, it's GCSE.

[Chris_w666]

pcvman said:

Please bare with me, maybe Im being a little stupid here, and before you all shout and be abusive to me, Petrol costs, Now I know the government takes a huge chunk in taxes but please explain how if even when the pound is weak against the rest of the world, and the price per barrel of oil is lower than 2009 that B.P announces today Quaterly Profits of 3.6 billion pounds.
and Shell 3.2 billoin pounds
surly it proves we are paying way over the odds for petrol and diesel even after just exiting the worst ressesion in histroy.

Now I drive a 1.4 fiesta, am on less than 20K a year and i can bearly afford to run my car, god knows what some of you are feeling with your bigger cars.

I feel if one of the party's want to win the next election start with the lowering of fuel prices.

nice views anyone.

Read some of the responses in that thread about the actual %age of turnover the profit represents and then come back and moan about how the Oil co is ripping us off.

It amazes me that people get information from biased media outlets and all of a sudden forget how ste the government is because someone has made a few quid profit from a business they buy goods from.

The opening post in this thread does also say a lot about how little the countries education system prepares people for the way the world works.

Edited by Chris_w666 on Wednesday 28th April 11:47

[Martin Keene]

There is something going on. Last time prices were £1.20 / litre, tax was £0.68 / litre and oil was $137 barrel.

Now we have £1.20 / litre, tax at £0.74 / litre and oil at $89 / barrel.

Exchange rates don't explain it either. $137 / barrel at £/$ of 0.50434 is £0.435 / litre and $89 / barrel at £/$ of. 0.65013 is £0.364 / litre.

It's going somwhere...

[slipstream 1985]

20k a year is a respectable enough salary. infact i paid rent ran a car and had a semi decent social life on 12k per year. that was only 5 years ago. rents have stayed relativly the same and fuel costs arnt that different.