The lies about cheaper motor fuel this week

Inactive

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Ha ... thought so!

Googling the phrase "Budget 2011: Petrol duty cut" indicates that the official thread perhaps never got started ... and the most important consumerist backlash on a broken promise story this week has almost passed MSE by!

Someone had better tell MSE Guy and have this thread transplanted perhaps

Try this one;

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2011/03/budget-2011-petrol-prices

2sides2everystory

That's where I first found the duff link ... it was MSE Guy's introducing story on the topic on budget day, but the Comment and Discuss thread never got started and that's where this story would have properly developed.

jase1

... and still my local Sainsbury/Tesco (Co Durham) charges 125.9.....

Must admit though that the differential in price between areas of the country is an eye-opener. Sainsbury in Theale was charging 131.9 yesterday, and they were the cheapest for miles around. Robbery.

I have to laugh at the "economical" diesel prices 10p a litre more expensive than the petrol though. Given I can eek 53mpg on a run out of my petrol Focus, 60mpg from a diesel is just the same price surely?

2sides2everystory

And still ASDA here are getting away with charging 136.9 for diesel - thank goodness that despite 250 miles since Dunkirk I still have another 500 or more left at 1.33.5 EUROS !!

Ah yes ... them dang decimals! Actually the fill before that was at 10.1/litre !

Gordon_Hose

I paid 136.0p for Diesel on Sunday, last night I filled up again and it was 137.9p.

So since the 1p cut it has gone up 2p at my local Tesco lol.

The local Shell is the same, they're always pretty much the same price.

sysiphus

I understand that there are 300,000 people on facebook planning to boycott all petrol stations tomorrow.
Are any MSE'rs planning to join in?
Does anyone think this will make any difference?

Strider590

sysiphus wrote: »

I understand that there are 300,000 people on facebook planning to boycott all petrol stations tomorrow.
Are any MSE'rs planning to join in?
Does anyone think this will make any difference?

Now over 530'000 people.

Yeah, it'll f*ck em up.....

Oil refineries are like a production line, it's supply and demand, so by avoiding the pumps for just one day they end up with a huge backlog of fuel.
Where does this fuel go? well they have limited storage, so it sits in the fuel tankers. But the next day they'll produce just as much fuel again only they'll have nowhere to store it. They have to cut production, but still have to pay bills and labour costs, but with the line slowed down they're using less crude oil, this then starts to pile up because that's being supplied at a constant rate.

Then before they know it, it's cost them six figure sums and they've had no income to compensate for it.

Downside, they could just ramp up fuel prices again to recover their losses.

jase1

I don't think 300,000 will make much difference for one day to be honest.

If no-one bought fuel for a day, it would cause problems.

But many of those 300,000 wouldn't have bought fuel tomorrow in any case. How often do you fill up -- once or twice a week? So perhaps one in four of those 300,000 will make a difference -- that's 75,000 out of several million who will fill up on any one given day.

Then those 75,000 just fill up the following day.

Net result -- negligible.

Then you add on the fact that if this gets enough publicity to reach the critical mass needed, there will doubtless be an equal (or at least similar) number of cynical (but sensible) people who will deliberately fill up tomorrow to avoid the queues.

esuhl

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I paid 1.33.5 per litre for diesel when I filled up in Dunkirk last evening.

Good grief! That's decimal point inflation for you. In the good old days petrol was cheap and priced with just the one decimal point! (I'll get my coat...)

Strider590

jase1 wrote: »

I don't think 300,000 will make much difference for one day to be honest.

If no-one bought fuel for a day, it would cause problems.

But many of those 300,000 wouldn't have bought fuel tomorrow in any case. How often do you fill up -- once or twice a week? So perhaps one in four of those 300,000 will make a difference -- that's 75,000 out of several million who will fill up on any one given day.

Then those 75,000 just fill up the following day.

Net result -- negligible.

That's what everyone thinks and that's why it never gets enough support, but the logistics f*ck up it causes, WILL cost them a fortune!

They operate a on the basis of predictable usage, a sudden dip will cause havoc.



It's like a major supermarket saying to a bakery "I want 5000 cakes a day, every single day, delivered to my store", several years go by and those 5000 cakes are there on time every single time.

Then suddenly at zero notice "we only want 500 cakes today", you've got 3 44 tonne truck loaded with cakes, no storage, your courier is !!!!ed because he's got 3 trucks out of use, it's costing money to hold them there, the product is deteriorating (and petrol does too, slowly), youve had to stop a £5000 a minute production line, you've got raw materials stocking up and your work force are sat around twiddling their thumbs.

The next few days the store says "Ok, I want 6000 a day", you've got to restart the production line, clear out the old stock and sort out the mess with the couriers. Your working to get through raw materials, but it keeps on coming at it's previous rate anyway.
It's one big SNAFU and it'll take weeks to recover!

Now in my example the supplier could charge the store for breaking contract..... BUT we don't have a contract to buy petrol do we?