BS: How to get cheap petrol!

Subject: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: folk1e
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 07:19 PM

The petrol business is very cut throat nowadays so..........
if we all refused to buy our petrol from the largest oil companies (BP / Esso) they would very soon notice and cut their price to regain "their" market share. The other fuel sellers would immediately retaliate with a corresponding cut of their own. This would carry on until eather the companies profit margins were depleated or we started to buy our petrol from the big guys again!
It is all demand and supply!
Ideas anybody?

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 07:49 PM

Get a Nectar Card and use Sainsbury's - Usually as cheap as any one in the area , and you get a Point for every litre !

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: GUEST,Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 08:53 PM

A gas can and a siphon hose?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 09:03 PM

Yeah. It was tried in the '70s. Didn't work then, either.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 09:10 PM

Assuming business models for fuel sales in the UK are similar to those in the US, it's impossible to stop buying fuel from a specific company. Why? Because when one supplier runs low on fuel, he buys some from another supplier with a surplus. You can boycott stores with BP signs, but that doesn't necessarily mean you won't be buying BP's fuel from a store with a different name.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 10:52 PM

The only way to reduce the price of petrochemicals is to reduce the demand. At present, the Chinese demand is growing faster than any possible reduction we can create.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: pattyClink
Date: 05 Sep 07 - 11:51 PM

The boycotting would really not work, it would just convince Them that consumers really are as dumb as they think.

Here's an alternative. Fill up your tank half or 5/8 full, never completely full (unless you're on a road trip or a hurricane looms). If 50 million people started doing this over a short period of time, it would cause a one-time drop in demand of about 500 million gallons.

After that initial demand shock is history, you would have another effect of forcing them to keep storing a little more inventory until you're ready to use it, rather than you carrying the inventory for them.

Personal benefits--you're postponing putting gas money out the door til it's really necessary. And as you keep making half-fills, you tend to think much more about how much gas you're really using and how to cut back a bit.

EBarnacle, any figures on that China growth? I thought the US was still by far the 800-pound gorilla of gasoline consumption. Cripes, if we'd just ban drive-through windows and made the kids walk or ride buses to school instead of having Mom run a 5-trips-a-day chauffeur and errand service....there are so many ways we could whack demand back if we ever actually tried....

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 11:14 AM

If you look at China, they have a fast growing entrepreneurial class. As they get more prosperous, they progress from riding busses to owning bicycles to motor bikes and scooters on up the consumption chain.

The company I work for has just opened the China market and our biggest customer is the government. They wish to reduce their consumption per capita and emissions as much as we should, maybe more.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 11:50 AM

Unfortunately, it is only the large companies that can afford the ground rent in cities like London - smaller, independant garages are being forced out of business by supermarket petrol stations. Driving into south London on Monday night, I drove for 16 miles before I found a petrol station, and that was a supermarket owned one.

It's not going to be long before we see the UK price going up to a pound a litre - I've already seen a 99.1p sign this week. I remember my dad having a pink fit with yellow spots when it went up to a pound a gallon!

The only solution is to use the bus, train, walk, or cycle.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: PMB
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 12:00 PM

Let's see, in 1970 beer was 10p per pint, now it's £2.00 - 20 times as much.

Back then (according to the AA), petrol was 33p a gallon. Now it's 97p a litre - that's £4.40 a gallon, or a bit over 13 times as much.

You're better off drinking petrol than beer.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Greg B
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 12:17 PM

I didn't know that Alcoholics Anonymous followed the price of
gasoline--- or even that of beer.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Grab
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 01:06 PM

The petrol business is very cut throat nowadays

Since when? Ultimately it comes down to a price set by a cartel - in other words, by a bunch of mates (or at least business partners) in the Middle East. What happens after that is pretty trivial.

Yes, it's supply and demand. But so long as you're demanding petrol from *someone*, it doesn't really matter who. The only way to make petrol companies hurt is to stop using petrol (and diesel and LPG) altogether.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: folk1e
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 05:58 PM

If we do not buy from BP/ Esso they do not get our cash, somebody else does. Sainsbury / Asda &co do not pay the hyper inflated prices WE pay even if they did buy their exess petrol from Shell. This would affect the profit of Shell / BP. Unless Esso / BP are the only producers?

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Peace
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 06:35 PM

How to get cheap petrol . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 06:56 PM

If we do not buy from BP/ Esso they do not get our cash...

Again, I'm not sure how UK & US retail fuels sales systems compare. In the US, very few stores that sell fuel are actually owned by the oil companies. Most are owned by private individuals or by convenience store chains like 7-11. Stores that may appear to be company-owned are usually privately owned but under contract with the oil company.

The oil company makes its profit by selling a tanker-truck load of fuel to the store. The profit made on the retail sale goes to the store itself, not the oil company. That's why boycotting a particular brand won't work in the US. The oil company doesn't care who it sells that tankerful of fuel to. If it's a store that flies its own flag, fine. If not, some other store's money is just as green.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 07:11 PM

You're better off drinking petrol than beer.

Clearly you have been drinking lager...

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: Peace
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 07:15 PM

A lager factory!

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 07:27 PM

I will not buy Exxon or Mobil unless it's that or walk.

Subject: RE: BS: How to get cheap petrol!
From: GUEST,Curious
Date: 08 Sep 07 - 11:30 AM

Is it true that when an aircraft finds that the fuel in the country in which it's just landed is cheaper than at its home, it fills up in this cheaper place and then flies, without passengers, all the way home (and maybe unloads/transfers the remaining fuel)?