Petrol

Author
Discussion

relaxitscool

Original Poster:

382 posts

279 months

Friday 5th April 2002
quotequote all
Is it my imagination or does it take about one billionth of a nanosecond for the price of petrol to go up if somebody in the Middle East sneezes, yet it takes a couple of months to return to mere rip off levels should all be fine and dandy.....

Bonce

4,339 posts

292 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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I was thinking the exact same thing earlier today when I noticed that I'm now paying 7p a litre more than I was at Christmas.

Bonce

smeagol

1,947 posts

297 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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absolutely true. Mind you its like my local supermarket that give you tokens for 3p off every litre of fuel (provide you spend over £30) but then shoves the price up by 4p at the pumps

Jason F

1,183 posts

297 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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I think it must just be your imagination. If that were the case then Petrol Companies would just be trying to Rip Off Britain and we know they don't do that

Does anyone know if the price of petrol has rocketed in Europe too ??

To be quite honest though I don't begrudge Petrol Companies, its the Petrol Tax that p****es me off.

CarZee

13,382 posts

280 months

Friday 5th April 2002
quotequote all
Yeah well there is talk of the middle east (OPEC) stopping selling oil to UK & USA until we intervene to stop Israel and also if we bomb Iraq...

Don

28,378 posts

297 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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quote:

Yeah well there is talk of the middle east (OPEC) stopping selling oil to UK & USA until we intervene to stop Israel and also if we bomb Iraq...


Can you blame 'em really? Mind you: it'd be an economic catastrophe for them to do it but...hell...if they really want to make a point its a good way to do it. The yanks would sort themselves out (they always do) and we'd be left high and dry with our pertrol driven economy going down the tubes fast.

Imagine if the petrol strikes from a coupld of years ago went on for a few months.....

They say a nation is three square meals from anarchy at any time. Its true...

stc_bennett

5,252 posts

280 months

Friday 5th April 2002
quotequote all
Looks Like we need more dump the pump days!!!

But the rise in oil prices dont place that much more money on petrol. Remeber its the government that has 80% tax on fuel..

They even tax Electric and Gas. and i thought VAT was only added to items of luxury (so keeping warm is a luxury and cooking is a luxury.) Sorry but its the government who we need to get through to to get the pump prices down...

Until there is stability in the Middle East OPEC's Prices wont become stable and a WAR on any eastern country will put the prices up even more.

It was just a though so for the political reply

Steve

Fatboy

8,195 posts

285 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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IIRC we can now import enough oil from russia that OPEC could do that with minimal impact on us - but they'd be really F*cked...

relaxitscool

Original Poster:

382 posts

279 months

Friday 5th April 2002
quotequote all
And another thing, anybody remember when diesel was cheaper than petrol. Then diesel got popular and the price went up?
Plus the good old days of Gallons. At the budget the gallon used to get put up a couple of pence. When litres came in they still put it up annually at a couple of pence per litre, this though equates 4.5 times more than year before when we had gallons….nobody raised an eyebrow...

CarZee

13,382 posts

280 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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Personally, I'm all for anything that discourages people from buying and running diesel cars... dirty smelly carcinognic PM10s etc.. and I've had a couple of (ok, old) diesel cars so it's not like I don't understand their benefits....

steve harrison

461 posts

280 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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I love the trick whereby the oil companies wail and mewl about their paper thin margins on petrol sales. Of course the margins are thin when The Very Big Oil Co. (Retail Division) have to pay The Very Big Oil Company (Refined Products Division) whatever they ask for the stuff and they in turn pay The Very Big Oil Co. (E&P Division) whatever the world market dictates. It's a totally artificial situation. If you look at the end to end process - Explore, drill, pump, transport, refine, transport some more, flog; the oil companies all make truck loads of money (and we're talking really obscene amounts of money here) and the higher the towelheads push the price (because there's an outside chance that at long last we might get around to turning Iraq into a glass-floored, self-lighting parking lot) the more they make because their real terms cost at the pump never changes.

Even the government make more when the price goes up because they get more VAT. The only people to get shafted are you and me.

For a country who were supposed to be sitting on massive oil reserves we seem to have well and truly f****d it over the years. We ought to be able to show the finger to OPEC and pump our own. The only people who have made even more of a pig's ear of it are the Nigerians and their excuse is that the entire oil revenue goes into the Cayman Island accounts of a few bent politicians who want chopping off at the knees and propping against the wall for shooting. Actually, most of the Nigerians I know are pretty down-to-earth blokes who are perfectly capable of doing just that so maybe we could let them loose on the Herr Blair Bunch while they're at it.

Steve

ps must remember to fill the car up on the way home while I can still aford it.

Terminator

2,421 posts

297 months

Friday 5th April 2002
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quote:

Yeah well there is talk of the middle east (OPEC) stopping selling oil to UK & USA until we intervene to stop Israel and also if we bomb Iraq...


Not if this is anything to go by...

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1041-2002Apr5.html

JMorgan

36,010 posts

297 months

mondeoman

11,430 posts

279 months

Saturday 6th April 2002
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The margins may be paper-thin on a litre - but you sell a trillion litres, thats a shed load of margin!!

Think I read in the paper yesterday that one of the organisers of the fuel blocades was talking about getting them started again if that tight-fisted scotch git (no offence to any other Scots!) in No.11 doesn't do something to offset the 380% tax that we pay on fuel.

Wasn't there also something about VAT going up to 20% if the wallet-raiders (and complete wasters - they can't even spend the money they've got) get their way. I just cannot understand how we can be going into this next FY with somehting like a £10 BILLION surplus in the bank , and those W*****S in Govm't talking about having to raise taxes to pay for the NHS - and the C*** is smiling as he says it? VIVE LA REVOLUTION.

andytk

1,558 posts

279 months

Saturday 6th April 2002
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slighty unrelated but a while back I remember seeing on TV (on the news I think) something about a gang of thieves breaking into an oil refinery and pinching a full tanker of petrol. I rememeber seeing the CCTV footage of it.
The whole tanker was later found by the police but by this time it was empty.......

(although it begs the question what the hell did they do with 20 tons of petrol??, stick it in a tank in someones garage??)

I thought it was hilarious at the time and it's sure easier than knocking off a bank.
So if someone wants a lifetimes supply of petrol for free then you know what to do....

It beats paying Tonys Cronies everytime you are ripped off at the pumps.

Andy

CarZee

13,382 posts

280 months

Monday 8th April 2002
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Still quite so confident, naysayers???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1916000/1916755.stm
quote:
Senior leaders had decided "in the name of the people of Iraq ... to stop exporting oil totally as of this afternoon through pipelines flowing to Turkish ports and the south for 30 days" unless Israel withdrew, he said.

JonVickers

121 posts

297 months

Tuesday 9th April 2002
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www.petrolbusters.com

Now run the AA, but still works as well as it did during the petrol crisis...

mondeoman

11,430 posts

279 months

Tuesday 9th April 2002
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Damn fine idea - nick a tanker.....Love it!