Fuel Prices

[Cablechap]

Hi All,

Received this email (some of you may have already received it yourselves) this morning for a new approach to help reduce the price we are paying at the pumps. See what you think, personally I buy mine from Tesco or Shell anyway.

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See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting 106.9 p a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1.10a 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 aggressive 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 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. If each of you send i t 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

[Fidgits]

for the love of god....!

This mail does the rounds every couple of months...

But credit where credits due - the marketing team at Shell did come up with a great idea to get more business!

The simple fact is - the oil companies are a small part of the problem of the fuel prices - the simple fact is, its supply and demand, and China and India are forcing the cost of crude oil up - so the oil companies pass this cost onto us.

If you really want to make a difference - target the goverment.

Not only do we pay fuel duty at 40%, but on top of that, we also pay VAT.

So - we are paying an additional 17.5% tax on the cost of the fuel and the fuel tax.

If everyone wrote to their local goverment demanding the removal of VAT on fuel, that would have a much better chance of doing something rather than just buying from Shell instead.

removing VAT would take the price down to 80p a litre - which is realistic given the crude cost and still putting a huge amount of money into the goverments pocket. 69p a litre will never happen, im sorry but anyone that thinks it will is sorely misguided.

[GregP]

I saw similar email about 2 years ago. The idea was simply the same but I am not sure if people really did it.

As per Fidgits post main issue is tax on the fuel. Oil cost without tax is about 35 p/litre http://www.petrolprices.com/fuel-tax.html

I do not buy from BP/ESSO anyway.

[Cablechap]

If you really want to make a difference - target the goverment.

Not only do we pay fuel duty at 40%, but on top of that, we also pay VAT.

So - we are paying an additional 17.5% tax on the cost of the fuel and the fuel tax.

If everyone wrote to their local goverment demanding the removal of VAT on fuel, that would have a much better chance of doing something rather than just buying from Shell instead.

removing VAT would take the price down to 80p a litre - which is realistic given the crude cost and still putting a huge amount of money into the goverments pocket. 69p a litre will never happen, im sorry but anyone that thinks it will is sorely misguided.

I like your thinking, however I cannot imagine there is much incentive for the Government to remove VAT just because joe public may demand it. We all know that if it dissappears, it will reappear somewhere else anyhow. I'm guessing that businesses claw it back it if VAT registered, so only affects (I say only affects - obviously its a lot of drivers) the general public. Saying that, public pressure does work, around my area the introduction of small town parking charges got forced out and ultimately, partly resulted in a change of local government.

[gar]

I saw similar email about 2 years ago. The idea was simply the same but I am not sure if people really did it.

As per Fidgits post main issue is tax on the fuel. Oil cost without tax is about 35 p/litre http://www.petrolprices.com/fuel-tax.html

I do not buy from BP/ESSO anyway.

One of the ironies of life is this big campain to slow down traffic to 20mph in built up areas where 30 has been safe enough for 60 years....

At 20, you will be burning MORE fuel and causing MORE co2 emmisions to be released into the air but 'they' happily ignore that!!

So mow, we are wasting even more of our very expensive petrol/diesel on going slower, when the problem is in teaching drivers to drive better and pedestrians/cyclists to look before wandering into the road!!

Who wins? The bloomin' govermnent as they get MORE money from us, whilst not saving lives, just looking like they care for peoples safety, then they blame the car manufacturers for not reducing emmisions enough!!

BTW, I got petrol from Asda the other day as my local Tesco was shut for some reason, it was just under a pound a litre. I guess you save a bit by not having to pay someone to take your money as they are fully automated.

[GregP]

Talking about fuel consumption...do you think that really works: http://www.easywatercar.com/2books.htm

[Fidgits]

One of the ironies of life is this big campain to slow down traffic to 20mph in built up areas where 30 has been safe enough for 60 years....

At 20, you will be burning MORE fuel and causing MORE co2 emmisions to be released into the air but 'they' happily ignore that!!

So mow, we are wasting even more of our very expensive petrol/diesel on going slower, when the problem is in teaching drivers to drive better and pedestrians/cyclists to look before wandering into the road!!

erm - im the biggest critic of so called 'climate change' (or weather as i know it), and judging things based on CO2 outputs (the MOST arbitary measurement EVER thought up)...

but considering CO2 emissions are equal to fuel being burnt, i.e. dependant on size, power and revs of the engine producing them - how do you figure that you produce more CO2 at 20mph than 30mph? unless your changing down a gear and effectively driving at higher revs (which is rare, i find most cars just about tickover at 20mph!) your statement makes no sense what-so-ever.