Topic: Fuel & energy prices

[Nobby Reserve]

Most of the ones I've seen did reduce by the 5p.

The Mozzers near us cut by 5p the day after, then knocked another 4p off a few days later (177p -> 172p -> 168p)

Oil price has fallen from its $119/barrel peak a couple of weeks ago, now sitting at $100/barrel. Biden announced a massive release of oil reserves to help reduce the market price.

Those c*nts in the ME are stubbornly refusing to increase output to replace the gap caused by the absence of Russian oil.

Sneaky fuckers have generally re-hiked prices after lowering them. Morrisons near us lumped diesel prices back to £1.74

This despite oil today being at $96/barrel down from its peak of $114. It's been a steady decline in price, with just a couple of slight and temporary hiccups. Certainly no justification

And the price differential between petrol and diesel is now approaching a ball-breaking 20p/litre. Given most lorries and vans use diesel, that dubious differential is going to lead to inflationary pressures across the economy as logistics/delivery companies and tradespeople all look to pass on their unprecedentedly higher costs.

I bet the petrol stations' margins have surged.

[Red-Soldier]

It’s a mixed bag to be honest but I’m no expert. The roof has loads of the woolly stuff in the roof, but we also have a sky light in one room that’s is only a single pane of glass (this is from before we bought the house), but the rest of the windows are all new with all of the windows at the front of the house triple glazed (we live on a busy road so it helps with the noise) and the rest double. With the walls I have no idea as the house was extensively extended by the previous owners from the original house and then we extended a bit again. One positive with all of this is that it’s kiboshed my dads ideas around further (and completely unnecessary) extensions or building projects as I’m not paying to heat any more house!

New windows are good, especially triple glazing.

I would definitely investigate whether you can get your cavity walls insulated or not.  Also, current loft insulation is much thicker than it was, so you might need that done again too.  I'm not sure which is your local authority, but mine are offering advice and discounts on insulation at the moment, so they should be your first port of call.

You can also get it done through your provider (free if your parents are on pension credit).

Lots of people keep getting their houses extended - I mean, how much house do you actually need 

[Nobby Reserve]

New windows are good, especially triple glazing.

I would definitely investigate whether you can get your cavity walls insulated or not.  Also, current loft insulation is much thicker than it was, so you might need that done again too.  I'm not sure which is your local authority, but mine are offering advice and discounts on insulation at the moment, so they should be your first port of call.

You can also get it done through your provider (free if your parents are on pension credit).

Lots of people keep getting their houses extended - I mean, how much house do you actually need 

We knew years ago that building high environmental credentials into new houses was significantly cheaper than trying to convert houses to the same environmental standards.

The government (and the Labour Govt before it) has repeatedly failed to heed calls to bring in legislation to force house builders to build-in high environmental standards for insulation and glazing (approaching 'passive' levels).

Why is this?

Well, housebuilders struggle to pass on those increased costs of higher environmental standards when the benefits for the buyer are more hidden and longer-term. It's more local market rates and visible (often gimmicky) shiny things that dictate prices. That eats into their margins. And as the property development sector is a huge (the biggest?) political donor, especially to the Tory Party, as well as being one of the most active in lobbying, successive governments have shied away from enacting such legislation.

Another example of the corruption of our democracy by corporate interests, fucking-over society in the process.

[Jono69]

Wasn't sure where to put this

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-04-28/council-mistakenly-pays-25000-residents-150-tax-rebate-twice



Best Regards

Mr Happy In Leeds

[John C]

Wasn't sure where to put this

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-04-28/council-mistakenly-pays-25000-residents-150-tax-rebate-twice

Best Regards

Mr Happy In Leeds

Friggin hell what a mess that is. Leeds is a big city, that will be a huge temporary loss. Claw back won't be as easy as you imagine either.

[redwillow]

I know there a lot of threads that contribute to this and may discuss it but this is getting very serious.

Today, i travelled for work like i have done for the last 6 years. £0.22 a mile - that is what the Gov & HMRC allow to be paid to you to cover fuel plus wear and tear of the car for that journey. I am now loosing money to do my job...

Sad thing is, i don't think price will ever drop. £1.95 - £2.00 is the new normal. There is no way the fuel companies will drop their prices back down when feasible

[Elmo!]

Prices will drop if oil prices do. It's generally quite a competitive market with the supermarkets selling it as cheap as possibly to draw you in to their stores.

[KillieRed]

My weekly fuel costs (short commute) have gone from around £60 to £90. Oil prices may have gone up, but it smells of price gouging.

I`m looking at an electric car to replace my current one (no pun intended).

[Musketeer Gripweed]

Like always, when the oil price goes up, the price of fuel goes up almost straight away. But when it comes down, it seems to take a lot longer for the price of fuel to come down again.

One local petrol station near me has reduced the price by 10p a litre in the last week, while most of the others, including the supermarkets, have left it at the same price so far.

[stewil007]

There were reports that the cost per litre could drop by about 10p next week due to oil prices dropping.

For some, electric will be the way forward, although the price of electric outside of the home is rising quite markedly also - 6 months ago 30p per kWh was quite normal, it is now closer to 50p per kwh - this is still competitive but the gap is closing.

The difference maker is what you can pay at home - there are more and more domestic EV tariffs, i am currently paying 5p / kwh 11pm - 6.30pm with Octopus, this tariff is locked in till Feb 23 (peak 24p) but after that, the tariff will rise to 7.5p off peak and 40p peak, that is going on todays quotes, but post Oct and Jan when the price hikes come in, who knows.

Through my work i get 5p per mile for commuting - this doesn't come close to covering the actual cost and the way this is calculated doesn't seem to keep up with the raise in the price of electric.

[thaddeus]

When I filled up at a French supermarket last week the equivalent price in pounds for petrol was £1.63.  I've always found fuel to be slightly cheaper in France than in the UK but the gap is definitely wider than I was expecting.

The speculated 10p drop would narrow the gap but I presume prices at French pumps will also be reducing.

[Fordy]

My weekly fuel costs (short commute) have gone from around £60 to £90. Oil prices may have gone up, but it smells of price gouging.

I`m looking at an electric car to replace my current one (no pun intended).

Then you price for electric will go through the roof and increase. Not enough decent electric cars on the market as yet.

The price for electric is more likely to increase over the next few months or years at a rapid rate.

Also you need to understand that with electric cars they are not enough mechanics about that can fix them if anything goes wrong with them. Repair costs are high.

[shook]

I know there a lot of threads that contribute to this and may discuss it but this is getting very serious.

Today, i travelled for work like i have done for the last 6 years. £0.22 a mile - that is what the Gov & HMRC allow to be paid to you to cover fuel plus wear and tear of the car for that journey. I am now loosing money to do my job...

Sad thing is, i don't think price will ever drop. £1.95 - £2.00 is the new normal. There is no way the fuel companies will drop their prices back down when feasible

Likely will get even worse, though maybe not that bad for UK (compared to others). From some of the analysts I've read, Russian siberian oil and some Kazakstan oil will be offline by the end of the year because after Shell/BP left, there are no technicians to run some of the fields, and its only a matter of time before those millions of barrels/day are eliminated from the market.
So even Russian oil resold to Europe from elsewhere will be less quantity than before, meaning additional price increase.

[[new username under construction]]

My weekly fuel costs (short commute) have gone from around £60 to £90. Oil prices may have gone up, but it smells of price gouging.

I`m looking at an electric car to replace my current one (no pun intended).

Best thing you can do despite what some say always lease though

[KillieRed]

Then you price for electric will go through the roof and increase. Not enough decent electric cars on the market as yet.

The price for electric is more likely to increase over the next few months or years at a rapid rate.

Also you need to understand that with electric cars they are not enough mechanics about that can fix them if anything goes wrong with them. Repair costs are high.

I’ll be getting a lease car through work where everything is covered. I take your point about the rising price of electric charging though. It does seem we will all have to head that way eventually.

[stewil007]

Then you price for electric will go through the roof and increase. Not enough decent electric cars on the market as yet.

The price for electric is more likely to increase over the next few months or years at a rapid rate.

Also you need to understand that with electric cars they are not enough mechanics about that can fix them if anything goes wrong with them. Repair costs are high.

There are plenty of decent electric cars on the market and the number is increasing, the issue is affordability not quality.

As for things going wrong, there are less moving parts in an electric car, so less to go wrong - what exactly is more expensive?  Also, servicing and running costs are lower, so there is a balance.

[Fabulous_aurelio]

A petrol station next to my work have been awful throughout this. £1.99 at the first sign of an increase and hasn't come down once. They are in a really convenient place so it will always get used.

However I've been there today and they've dropped it to £1.94.

Fingers crosses that it's starting to come down.

[RainbowFlick]

I only really drive short-ish journeys within the barriers of Greater London but my car has just been gathering cobwebs for months now. I've started walking to places way more than before. Just not sustainable. If I remember right my tank used to cost about £60 and now is somewhere near £110 or something.

[Nobby Reserve]

Like always, when the oil price goes up, the price of fuel goes up almost straight away. But when it comes down, it seems to take a lot longer for the price of fuel to come down again.

One local petrol station near me has reduced the price by 10p a litre in the last week, while most of the others, including the supermarkets, have left it at the same price so far.

We've had oil prices up around the $100-110/barrel price in years previous. Forecourt prices then were in the £1.40-£1.50 range.

Between October 2010 and August 2014, the price was between $103 and $134/barrel  (https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart)

During that period, UK forecourt prices were between £1.19 and £1.42 (petrol) or £1.22 and £1.47 (diesel)  (https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time)

I accept that some other costs have risen, and the value of the £ against the $ has fallen somewhat, but there's still an immense amount of profitering along the line taking place somewhere.

Why is the media not making more of this and using this comparison?

[Fordy]

We've had oil prices up around the $100-110/barrel price in years previous. Forecourt prices then were in the £1.40-£1.50 range.

Between October 2010 and August 2014, the price was between $103 and $134/barrel  (https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart)

During that period, UK forecourt prices were between £1.19 and £1.42 (petrol) or £1.22 and £1.47 (diesel)  (https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time)

I accept that some other costs have risen, and the value of the £ against the $ has fallen somewhat, but there's still an immense amount of profitering along the line taking place somewhere.

Why is the media not making more of this and using this comparison?

Because the real solution is to cut VAT on fuel but they twill be worried that cutting VAT will then result in VAT being cut in other things which will effect them increasing costs.

[Red-Soldier]

Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years

Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert

The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (£2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed.

The vast total captured by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. The huge profits were inflated by cartels of countries artificially restricting supply.

The analysis, based on World Bank data, assesses the “rent” secured by global oil and gas sales, which is the economic term for the unearned profit produced after the total cost of production has been deducted.

The study has yet to be published in an academic journal but three experts at University College London, the London School of Economics and the thinktank Carbon Tracker confirmed the analysis as accurate, with one calling the total a “staggering number”. It appears to be the first long-term assessment of the sector’s total profits, with oil rents providing 86% of the total.

Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have driven the climate crisis and contributed to worsening extreme weather, including the current heatwaves hitting the UK and many other Northern hemisphere countries. Oil companies have known for decades that carbon emissions were dangerously heating the planet.

“I was really surprised by such high numbers – they are enormous,” said Verbruggen, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a former lead author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

“It’s a huge amount of money,” he said. “You can buy every politician, every system with all this money, and I think this happened. It protects [producers] from political interference that may limit their activities.”

The rents captured by exploiting the natural resources are unearned, Verbruggen said: “It’s real, pure profit. They captured 1% of all the wealth in the world without doing anything for it.” The average annual profit from 1970-2020 was $1tn but he said he expected this to be twice as high in 2022.

The profit-grabbing is holding back the world’s action on the climate emergency, he said: “It’s really stripping money from the alternatives. In every country, people have so much difficulty just to pay the gas and electricity bills and oil [petrol] bill, that we don’t have money left over to invest in renewables.”

Some of the rents go to governments as royalties, says Prof Paul Ekins, at University College London: “But the fact remains that, over the last 50 years, companies have made a huge amount of money by producing fossil fuels, the burning of which is the major cause of climate change. This is already causing untold misery round the world and is a major threat to future human civilisation.

“At the very least these companies should be investing a far greater share of their profits in moving to low-carbon energy than is currently the case. Until they do so their claims of being part of the low-carbon energy transition are among the most egregious examples of greenwashing.”

Mark Campanale, at Carbon Tracker, said: “Not only is the scale of these rents eye-watering, but it is salient to note that, in the midst of a cost of living crisis caused by record oil and gas prices, this flow of money to a relatively small number of petrostates and energy companies is set to double this year. Shifting to a carbon-neutral energy system based on renewables is the only way to end this madness.”

The Guardian revealed in May that the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts. The fossil fuel industry also benefits from subsidies of $16bn a day, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Verbruggen’s analysis used the World Bank’s oil rent and gas rent data, which the bank compiles country-by-country and is expressed as percentage of global GDP. He then multiplied this by the World Bank’s global GDP data and adjusted for inflation to put all the figures in 2020 US dollars.

Verbruggen said oil-rich nations, such as Russia and those in the OPEC cartel, including Saudi Arabia, kept rents high by restricting supply: “They change the fundamentals of the markets.” Military action, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and political action, such as the embargo on oil exports from Iran, had also increased the rents, he said. If all available oil and gas could be freely supplied to the market, the price of conventional oil would be $20-30 a barrel, Verbruggen said, compared with about $100 today.

There is far more oil, gas and coal in existing reserves than can be burned if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, the target agreed by nations in the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Campanale said: “To keep to 1.5C, this means [international oil companies alone] forgoing around $100 trillion of potential revenues. You can see why oil oligarchs and nations controlled by political elites want to keep their fossil fuel rents, the source of their power.”

May Boeve, the head of campaign group 350.org, said: “These profits have enabled the fossil fuel industry to combat all efforts to switch our energy systems. We have to dismantle such rent-seeking systems and build our future based on accessible and distributed renewable energy that is more sustainable and democratic in every way.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/revealed-oil-sectors-staggering-profits-last-50-years

[Red-Soldier]

Big Oil v the World

The most important story of our time. Despite climate chaos raging across the planet and urgent warnings from experts, our dependence on fossil fuels persists. How did we get here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0cgql8f/big-oil-v-the-world


I watched the first episode last night.

[John C]

Today, i travelled for work like i have done for the last 6 years. £0.22 a mile - that is what the Gov & HMRC allow to be paid to you to cover fuel plus wear and tear of the car for that journey. I am now loosing money to do my job...

It's 45ppm isn't it? If you're getting paid less is it because you have a company provided car?
In which case you're not responsible for wear & tear costs.

[The North Bank]

It's 45ppm isn't it? If you're getting paid less is it because you have a company provided car?
In which case you're not responsible for wear & tear costs.

45p for the first 10k miles, then half that. That’s the case with me anyway.

[thaddeus]

45p for the first 10k miles, then half that. That’s the case with me anyway.

That 10k miles is a very arbitrary cut-off!  Do you do like Everton with Alli and run it to 9,999 miles before locking it in the garage so you don't end up paying more?

[redwillow]

It's 45ppm isn't it? If you're getting paid less is it because you have a company provided car?
In which case you're not responsible for wear & tear costs.

I have a 'car allowance' so instead of a company car its cash towards my car. I imagine the monthly payment should cover wear & tear but some months i could drive 100 miles, others could be 10x that. Doesn't change the fact that a journey now is costing my pocket on fuel costs alone

[thejbs]

Prices will drop if oil prices do. It's generally quite a competitive market with the supermarkets selling it as cheap as possibly to draw you in to their stores.

Big Tesco near my house is among the most expensive. Another Tesco station I passed 20 mins away is selling at 6p a litre cheaper. Price gouging is definitely at play.

[eddymunster]

Because the real solution is to cut VAT on fuel but they twill be worried that cutting VAT will then result in VAT being cut in other things which will effect them increasing costs.

Fuel duty should be a flat rate x pence per litre, not x% per litre. One of the main beneficiaries of the increased fuel cost must surely be the government. Unless i'm misunderstanding how fuel duty is applied.

[Wabaloolah]

Remember when Labour were in power in 2000, the Tory supporting farmers blocked refineries to stop fuel getting to garages.

All we are getting now is some go slow driving on motorways.

The price is more than twice what it was back then yet no direct action like this is taking place now, I wonder why that is? 🙄

[Wabaloolah]

I have a 'car allowance' so instead of a company car its cash towards my car. I imagine the monthly payment should cover wear & tear but some months i could drive 100 miles, others could be 10x that. Doesn't change the fact that a journey now is costing my pocket on fuel costs alone

yes my company does the same but they really shouldn't be doing that as the rate is specifically for users with a Company Car not a Car Allowance

[Fordy]

Fuel duty should be a flat rate x pence per litre, not x% per litre. One of the main beneficiaries of the increased fuel cost must surely be the government. Unless i'm misunderstanding how fuel duty is applied.

Fuel duty is a load of bollocks because it effects the businesses and the government know that if they reduce fuel duty by 5p or 10p then the businesses will just increase the cost to the customer by 10p or 15p per litre.

The only way round it is VAT cutting for that sector.

[Spezialo]

Costco still the best. Asda came down to 181.7 from 185.7

[thejbs]

My Tesco is still at 198.8. Last few times, I’ve filled up across the border when down for work so getting 1.70-1.75 there.

[McSquared]

Just introduce an excess profit tax on everyone in the chain.

[Red-Soldier]

Just introduce an excess profit tax on everyone in the chain.

Have you read my previous post?

Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years

Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/revealed-oil-sectors-staggering-profits-last-50-years

[cornishscouser92]

Gulf garage on Garson way is £1.79 a litre for diesel and £1.74 for Petrol.

[-Willo-]

What were the prices before these mad rises over the last few weeeks/months?

[reddebs]

What were the prices before these mad rises over the last few weeeks/months?

When we moved in March of last year it was £1.11 but the prices had flatlined during the covid lockdowns as nobody was driving.

Funny how supply and demand changes things rather than oil prices 🤷

[thaddeus]

When we moved in March of last year it was £1.11 but the prices had flatlined during the covid lockdowns as nobody was driving.

Funny how supply and demand changes things rather than oil prices 🤷

A spokesperson for the forecourts was on Radio 5 after things opened up being surprisingly honest about how the forecourts he represented were profiteering.  He argued that during the lockdown they had suffered losses - citing primarily the loss of sales in the shops - and that this was their time to make up lost ground.

[Barneylfc∗]

Had a drive round yesterday to see the prices around me. Cheapest was £1.78^.9, most expensive was "1.91^.9