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stevieweevie | 13:26 Fri 18th Feb 2011 | Motoring
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Fairfueluk.com we cant keep paying these prices for fuel.
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I'm afraid we can and we will. Oil is a finite resource, and petrol will run out soon enough. As that time gets closer and closer, prices will keep on going on up until only millionaires and kings will be running cars
Nice idea but it will not work look what happened last time and fuel then was around 80 a litre !!!!!!!!
I'll take a look but from past experience folk don't have the will to stick with it, the government and petroleum industry can afford to sit out anything, and if the haulage/transport industry gets offered a deal they desert and the ordinary citizen is left ineffective.
We all know that a hefty proportion of the cost of fuel goes to the government - it's a way of raising revenue. If this was reduced then the money would have to come from somewhere else- fuel would go down and other things would go up. At least this way, those that use a vehicle have to pay the "tax". I can't understand why people can't see this.
It's not that they can't see this, it is because it is besides the point.

Why should one group face an excessive tax bill whilst the rest of the community pays less tax ? That is not equitable, it's akin to abuse. An equitable tax looks at what an individual gets out of society and asks them to contribute tax in proportion.
OG:....in your dreams.
And reality too.
I thought Cameron was going to introduce this stabelizer idea?

What happened? Not another U-turn? more broken promises?
(i) there is plenty of crude out there - new massive fields akin to the big Saudi ones are being discovered - they need to come on line and the quicker the better. The frightening stat is that only 1/3rd of the oil from the well is released in primary, secondary and tertiary (primary is equiv to a champagne bottle going off; secondary is the oil that comes out using mud to keep the pressure up and tertiary is where they use chemicals to get the cohesion of oil down and thereby get more out). New technology such as Schlumbegers down well microwave system is coming onstream - so imagine the impact on new wells and the older large ones if they can get an extra 5% or more yield out of the ground.
(ii) I am very much anti the stabiliser idea....it is economically playing with fire. Before you shout me down, I have had to pick up the wreckage in developing markets where such systems have been used, for example in French societies.....and also Belgium. Let me explain.

It is a widely used mechanism in the fuel market and social fuels such as LPG (aka genrically as 'Calor Gas' in the UK). It works well at first but what happens if there is the inevitable rise of base prices. At some point the government should intervene to lift the base price but doesn't - because it can (more likely is) a major election votes hot potato. So prices are held back and there is a drain on treasury and Government is forced to tax through the back door to pay the delta in the artificial price and the world market.

With the margins often negative in the market place, the marketing goes, service disapperars, salesforce goes and eventually safety is even compromised. For example, I had a consultancy team working on LPG in Morocco (5th largest market in the world), combined with Tunisia. This had happened and indeed I even found that my company's operations had 400 Bedouins seriously burnt and even killed - and not reported. Why, the valves had been compromised in using a parallel screw thread rather than a spiral thread swo as to be cheaper; they were not using the stenching agent (Mercaptan) that gets added to the LPG and Nat Gas as they are naturally odourless - and a whole host of cylinder maintenance issues and state.

We broke the stranglehold by commissioning market research to show that these issues were a potential election bomb with the electorate as they feared a major accident was in the making (and a cylinder going off in a house is not a pretty sight). In return for putting some air into the market, we committed to driving in a high action safety recovery programme and would drag the others along too (we had support from the other majo
the other majors for this.

Now LPG is not petrol - true but there were some nasty incidents and stats in the industry service station business too out there. The Uk is not Morocco - true - but squeeze out the margins and watch - lack of investment, cut of jobs - then eventually safety will be compromised and in service stations and depots this is not to be encouraged - remember the incident with Total at Hemel Hempstead........

Now what would I do as DC - (i) encourage field development west of Shetland and bring on new fields older and further extraction on older ones - using petroleum revenue on a sliding scale to reward accelerated development (ii) encourage fuel and enery savings further (yes more investment in this) (iii) encourage the US/Russia/China and Japan to follow suit on this as they are the big users (nearly 25% of world oil - in the US's case get a second Trans Alaskan line as shutdowns there always spike global prices). (iv) really boost the Foreign Office and global leadership to try and get some stability into what is happening in the M-East - and especially short term keeping Iran out from sticking their noses in. Sending warships through the Suez is only spiking things further....(Suez handles 2.4% of world crude equiv to UK needs). And higher oil prices favours the Iranian clerics (they export over 3 million barrels a day).
Of course the problem with this argument is that there is an underlying admission of unethical behaviour.

You're saying "If we can't make enough money safely then rather than withdraw from the market we will put people's lives at risk in order to stay in the market"

Or have I misunderstood?

My response to that is that if you make decisions like that you will go to gaol
Government sponsored Jake - you will see mass close down of stations if the oxygen is removed.....
and indeed withdrawal of the majors. Don't think it hasn't been thought about before as the UK retail market has not, and I say not, been that profitable - it has really struggled to make a discounted 8% on capital employed over time and more recently 3% - you are better off investing elsewhere or in other industries.
So your business model is basically Blackmail now?

and I would have thought that margins would have been driven down by competition in a free market

Unless you're suggesting that there is an illegal cartel?
Thats my point Jake - you are remving the mechanism for a free competitive market to naturally exist. No blackmail, no cartel or anything like that.......By the way I am out of the industry so don't make it personal. Not appreciated.
I didn't mean to imply you were personally responsible for unethical behaviour - but you did seem to be condoning the idea that if industry isn't given enough profit margin they would chose to cut safety and therefore government should make sure private industry remains profitable.

A slippery slope that!
jake - the industry is more than the majors. The majors would withdraw is my point on that and you may end up with no refineries with Brit Cos or even better, someone like the Libyans owning Stanlow for example (there's a very good fit there for their v-sweet crude). Not saying that it is all about profit but rather open competition.

If I sell my sausages at x and the next butcher cuts his prices to X-5% what am I to do.....differentiate around my product (not that easy but some differentiation is followed by the likes of Shell) or match the price - and the service station business is all about fixed costs once you take out cost of product. So it is up to them if they have a price war with the consequence of ROCE or ROI. My point is that a stabiliser risks removing this room for competitive spirit - with all the risk of consequences to the companies, customers and even the government (and us taxpayers) - and ultimately even possibly safety as that has happened in other markets that have had stabiliser mechanisms (Contrat D'Etat for example), especially those where a state oil co is involved (wit Tunisia).
Steve, I have signed a few petitions on-line & a few others, do you think we would have any bloody chance of getting a reduction in the cost of fuel when all you see from the answers already, " Negative" when will you people out there start sticking up for your rights? & before the " Isn't he angry mob start, NO I'm not angry like the rest out there, Pzzed off with overpaid parliamentarians screwing this country for all they can whilst the working class TRY to pay their Morgauge, rent, keeping a family after they have paid for their fuel, what the hell is the matter with you people????
so then TWR, tell me, did signing the petition do any good? Did fuel prices come down? Were they frozen?

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