Petrol Prices, could this help?

[BigMattyP]

Dear all.

I don't normally send stuff like this but it kinda made sense to me that we should all 'Fight the Power'!!!
I figured we all do a fair amount of driving as part of what is a much less lucrative business than it once was so maybe the UK Porn industry could help to bring down Goliath?

Please see what you think and pass it on if you agree with it.

We are hitting ?129.9 a litre in some areas now and soon we will be faced with paying ?1.50 per litre. So this seems like a 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 - not sellers control the market place. 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)
i.e. 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 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 in my email address book. If all 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 8 days!!! 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 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 Esso & BP

[Dave Wells]

Love to see it work but doubtful meself. But hey I'm in, I ONLY buy at Sainsburys anyhow coz it's the cheapest in Swindon and I get me points so I'm already doing it I suppose.

[BigMattyP]

I am just tired of getting stomped on by 'The Man' and I thought this would be as good a place as any to try and push back.
If the big companies start losing money they will be forced to lower prices and then everyone will follow.
The government have a lot to answer for because they take 80% tax from the price we pay at the pump (yes you read it right, 80%!!).
I don't know where that money goes but it certainly isn't back into the infrastructure of the roads up here in the North East!
Porn changes things, we have VHS instead of Betamax for example because of the porn industry. I just wonder if we can all make a difference with this or if it is even possible.
Like you Dave, I haven't used BP or Esso in years!
Big Matty P

[Mysteryman]

All major oil companies LOSE money on petrol retailing - that's why they build shops around their cash registers to make some money out of their customers. Where they make their money is in extraction and refining but whilst they make billions they don't set the prices.

That is done by a combination of speculators - buying oil "futures", effectively gambling on demand and production by "reading the runes" of weather, demand, political situations and transport costs - and governments, many which see fuel as the best milch cow ever.

Whilst the oil companies could afford to lose more money in retailing, why should they? The massive costs of exploration and extraction, in ever more difficult and often politically dangerous areas (Nigeria for instance) mean they have to make large profits against future costs of equipment and to pay their workers who live and work in ever more difficult conditions.

As time goes by the more we will see deep water exploration in areas that 20 years ago would have been deemed impossible. That WILL force up prices but it will still be the speculators and governents which take the bulk of the money you and I hand over every time we fill up.

They should be the target but hitting them will be a lot harder than hitting the banks and we've really done well there, haven't we?

Perhaps in the UK the first target should be the double taxation of fuel i.e. duty on top of which is charged VAT.

[Trinity]

I never buy fuel at either of those anyway.

Ever since it hit 132.9p a litre in the north east I've refused to buy from BP or Esso and still don't!

Asda seems to be cheaper than Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons at the mo around here at 124.9p a litre! 8 whole litres for ?10 lol

[Ron T. Storm]

BP in my town charges 131.9 a litre whereas in Enfield at Apple (the petrol company not computer store) they charge 124.8 a litre (prices checked today). Thats a very big difference. In May last year Apple were charging 113.8 a litre. That's a big price increase of 9% in less than one year - well above the rate of inflation.

Ron

[Love_Byter]

There was talk a while ago about BP actually selling off their forecourts (petrol stations). It sounds amazing but in actual fact only about 3% of their income comes from the pumps we drive up to.

B

[Mysteryman]

Of course you aren't taking into account that supermarkets use petrol as a loss leader and some of the discount petrol chains buy on the spot market, hedge their supply and, when that runs out, have greater adjustments than the majors.

Why have a go at just Esso and BP? The other major oil companies retail in exactly the same way. The facts are clear NO-ONE makes money out of retailing road fuel. That's why the number of petrol stations has decreased rapidly in the last 20 years.

It has always been the same. In the winter of 1973/4 when petrol went from 37.5 pence per GALLON (4.54 litres) to 50p almost overnight it saw the failure of many small retailers and one or two of the smaller chains as the retailers' margin stayed the same, people didn't buy as much fuel, the government raked money in as the amount of duty and VAT, based on price rose with the rise in prices.

In those days it was OPEC to blame rather than the speculators but, of course, the oil companies got the blame from the press and public.

If you travel widely round the country you will notice that remote areas pay more (transport costs) areas of high population with more petrol stations pay less (competition) and some areas operate obvious "agreements" between petrol stations which are fringing on illegality.

Boycotting any brand o outlet won't bring down prices. Only the speculators and reduced demand from industry in China, India and the US can do that, along with the coming Spring and Summer.

All you will do is close down garages and reduce competition.

On Wednesday last Brent crude was around $8 abarrel dearer than US crude due to aggressive speculative buying. The speculators are happy and the government, taking tax at various stages of the extraction, production and wholesaling process (Brent crude is not generally used for road fuel) is more than happy.