the price of fuel

[buster]

what a joke. ...cant believe it ...surely something has to be done.

 

 

and we still have the vat rise to come....this country stinks with prices like they are.

[HaydnH]

I reckon they should put it up more but do away with car tax.

[buster]

I reckon they should put it up more but do away with car tax.

 

 

i d agree with that if the price of fuel didnt go up every other day like it seems to at present.

[Zugara]

I have started putting in normal fuel, slight power loss but at this time of year you cant give it beans anyway.

[AK350Z]

Don't forget to fill up before the new year too!

[M13KYF]

just filled up today before the vat goes up with v-power. £75

[buster]

I have started putting in normal fuel, slight power loss but at this time of year you cant give it beans anyway.

 

 

 

me to m8........its just getting frigthening watching the fuel gauge and your wallet.

[DoogyRev]

I filled up today at £1.32per litre..... £66...... its gone up 5p or so.... that's only a fiver per tank which is not that bad. It will probably be much worse in the new year.

 

The thing that really get's my goat about petrol is that fact that you can drive 5 miles between the same make of petrol station and the price is different. It would be so much better if every Shell, Tesco's...etc was THE SAME PRICE. I put Shell Optimax in today, if I drove to the Shell garage on the A303 (9ish Miles) Optimax is £1.37......yet a pint of milk in each station is the same price

[cesc]

I reckon petrol prices will never go lower than £1.10 again. After the new rate of VAT comes in the price of fuel will be £1.30 in some parts

 

The thing that annoys me about it, is that when the price of oil drops drastically the subsequent decrease in fuel price is very slow and often minimal. But as soon as the price of a barrel of oil shoots up, they are very quick in increasing prices by 5 or 6p in the space of a week.

[rtbiscuit]

its a part of life and one that will only get worse as oil runs out.

 

i'm contemplating some cars with gas conversions, seen some tasty V8's but with the gas conversion its only about 45p per litre; or the equivilant of.

 

if prices keep going up its more and more tempting.

[varley16]

when does the VAT go up again? i wouldnt mind a gas conversion, but dont want to hurt my Z

[Cragus]

I'm getting an electric scooter!

[spursmaddave]

Meh it's the same for everyone, either put up with it or buy an ecomotive boremobile

[mbs]

Just accept it, it's not going to get any cheaper. The oil is running out, it's a matter of supply and demand. If you can't afford it sell up and buy a prius and be bored.

[Zugara]

VAT rise 4th jan 2011.

[rtbiscuit]

Meh it's the same for everyone, either put up with it or buy an ecomotive boremobile

 

swapping to gas is fine as its an unlimited resource. all the fun of petrol with the sounds, just none of the fuel.

 

has to be done at the right place though as they can be done badly and damage a ca.r

[Ricey]

I reckon petrol prices will never go lower than £1.10 again. After the new rate of VAT comes in the price of fuel will be £1.30 in some parts

 

The thing that annoys me about it, is that when the price of oil drops drastically the subsequent decrease in fuel price is very slow and often minimal. But as soon as the price of a barrel of oil shoots up, they are very quick in increasing prices by 5 or 6p in the space of a week.

 

Most of the crude prices are based on global manufacturing demand for oil.......remember when the recession first started and we were using the vacuous media phrase 'the credit crunch'....fuel actually went down for a fair while.

 

On the face of it that seemed like a good thing but the reality was it dropped due to global manufacturing decreasing.....everyone kept driving their cars, they just weren't buying new ones.

[martinmac]

We arent refining petrol at the moment, its too expensive, its cheaper to import it refined from the continent.

[jimgallaher]

I was in lanzarote 6 months ago and a litre of unleaded was 80p ! Considering mainland Europe is 700 odd miles away and the Spanish economy is in a worse state than the uk WTF is going on here ? Time for a popular revolution i think

[bronzee]

One of the guys from the club here is currently living in Bahrain, from his latest email:

 

"I am leasing a Nissan V8 4x4 as drivers are nuts and gas here is cheapest in world about $10-00NZ to fill up."

 

 

Hands up, who just fell off their seats.

 

Prices in NZ have gone up very quickly over the last month. We're up to NZ$1.99 a litre for rubbish 91octane, and about $2.18 a litre for 98octane, so nearly at the record price 2 years ago of $2.40 a litre for 98. Bearing in mind about 3/4 of the cost is actually tax, so the government do nothing to regulate for obvious reasons. BP here are almost always the first to lead the price hikes.

[chippy]

Blimey, glad I'm not in the mainland! It's about 95p a litre here.

[elfman]

sainsburys ultimate unleaded £1.21 a litre. not toooo bad really

[Stew]

My well count keeps going up. Production rates are through the roof. Downtime is at a minimum. It isn't my fault!!!!!

 

Greedy government.

[nicon2k]

Just accept it, it's not going to get any cheaper. The oil is running out, it's a matter of supply and demand. If you can't afford it sell up and buy a prius and be bored.

 

Yes, oil is a finite resource (So is gas BTW) so you could say that ever since the first person used some we were "running out" but that's about the only case where you can justify that term. Oil is becoming harder and more expensive to extract, but there is still plenty of it. Since so much oil is produced, the increased costs of extraction are spread over a vast amount of product so the end cost increase is very small.

 

There are two main factors with push up the price, the first is investors and bankers speculating and betting against the demand and price and the second is the relentless rise in fuel duty that successive governments force upon us.

 

The investors and speculators do a fine job of creating artificial demand. Say the global demand for oil is 10 Magical Oil Units (MOU) per day. One day someone decides to buy 9 MOU, the demand for that last remaining MOU will sky rocket meaning that when that person comes to resell his 9 MOU he is able to do so at an artificially high price. That days activities then have a knock on effect on the next days activities and a kind of feedback loop is created. This sort of betting allows individuals to make huge amounts of money while the end user (us) are the ones to suffer from the artificially inflated price.

 

The second factor and the one that really annoys me is the Tax on fuel. This country has one of the highest taxation rates on fuel of anywhere in the world. Fuel duty is seen as very easy way of generating money, its the government's golden egg. If they increase fuel duty by 1% then their net gain is actually 1.175% (Soon to be 1.2%) thanks to VAT. Since over 70% of the price we pay at the pumps goes directly into the government's pocket, that would seem like the best place to start looking for a reduction.

 

However, this will not happen as the government is quite happy to hide behind their "Green Agenda" (Read: load of total and utter bollocks!!) or the fact that they want to shift people onto the inadequate and over priced public transport system. Case in point: i live in Reading, lets say i had to go up to Manchester tomorrow because a family member was ill. I do not know when i will be coming back so i will need an open return. The ticket from London to Manchester is £156 and the journey time is 2h30m. Add to the the cost and time of getting from Reading to London (£16 single to London, £4 Zone 1 single and at least an hour) So that's £176 and 3h30m travel time. In my car a return trip would cost me about £75 in fuel (Even at its stupid price) and take around 4h. The joke is that driving a V6 sports car is more financially economical then using public transport. I know if i booked ahead i *Might* be able to get it cheaper on the train but that is a curtailment on my freedom!

 

Anyway, to bring this rambling rant to a close i believe that if there was not so much apathy and acceptance of the situation then things could be done about it. Freedom of movement is a human right and we are being buggered from behind whichever way we try to go!

[mbs]

The second factor and the one that really annoys me is the Tax on fuel. This country has one of the highest taxation rates on fuel of anywhere in the world. Fuel duty is seen as very easy way of generating money, its the government's golden egg. If they increase fuel duty by 1% then their net gain is actually 1.175% (Soon to be 1.2%) thanks to VAT. Since over 70% of the price we pay at the pumps goes directly into the government's pocket, that would seem like the best place to start looking for a reduction.

 

Yes it would be great if fuel tax was reduced but it aint going to happen for one very simple reason, the government needs a certain amount of tax income, it can get it in many ways fuel tax is just one option , one that I personaly prefer to say a rise in income tax, at least I have a choice as to whether I spend my hard earned on fuel, with an increase in income tax you don't have that choice. OK our fuel duty is one of the highest in the world, but on the other hand countries with lower fuel tax still have to raise income in other ways through direct taxes.

 

No one likes paying tax but it is a fact of life and as I said before if you don't particularly like paying fuel duty, buy a smaller car at least you have that choice, with direct taxes you don't.