Fuel

[84Stoney]

I put £77 in my tank the other day. After putting my previous record of £73 in the day before. (Exeter to London and back!)

What with having two days off work, I spent more money on petrol last week than i earned!

Just thought that was ridiculous!

[DJ Wozza]

Robbing B.... Government.

[Rikos]

Dont get me started on petrol prices!!! It is never go to stop or come down until people just cant afford to drive anymore!!

Over the last decade wages have gone up by 50% which sounds alot but houses have gone up by 200% and not including bills and food, it would be interesting to know what the percentage on petrol is??

[Steve]

i am surprised strikes haven't happened considering the last 6 months its really shot up in price... diesel 10p more than unleaded.. wtf?

about 20p a litre. Thats £12 a tank out of pocket for a 60 litre tank

assh*les

[shake]

i hear that the people who live in northen ireland (near the republic boarder) actually drive down into the republic just for petrol as the savings are huge!

i cant see the price coming down at all. when i first started driving it was 70p per litre.

[P4UL T]

I can remember when it was 47p

[84Stoney]

I remember when service station charging 70p was considered expensive, and i've only been driving since 02! So that was up at least 65% in 6 years. Tax (not including VAT!) is something like 70p per litre now!

[shake]

just heard on the radio.... planned strikes, and something else in scotland thats going to cause a shortage :duh:

[Hostile Smoker]

It'll never come back down again, the prices will just keep going up. There was such uproar when it went up to £1 and everybody complained and tried not buying petrol on certain days etc. etc. but it's now £1.20+ in some places, it'll just keep creeping up.

The government probably wont realise the damage they're doing until half the country have emigrated!

[WylieCoyote]

Petrol isn't expensive I'm afraid. Based on inflation and average earning it's no more expensive now than it was 10 years ago relatively. Let's face facts, if they didn't charge so much tax on fuel, they'd stick it on something else. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'd rather be in control of how much I'm giving them. I drive a nice car, I pay more fuel. Simple as. If they reduced petrol prices, they'd stick the tax on something where maybe you have no choice in how much you pay.

[Sagitar]

Petrol isn't expensive I'm afraid. Based on inflation and average earning it's no more expensive now than it was 10 years ago relatively.

You are right, but you will have a job convincing people.

In 1956, at the time of Suez the price of petrol rose to 6 shillings a gallon (30p today) and we were given petrol coupons, though they never got used as far as I am aware. I still have mine somewhere. Everyone screamed blue murder and of course at that time, £20 a week was a very good salary.

If petrol prices had kept up with wage inflation, we would be paying at least £9 a gallon now i.e. close to £2 a litre.

For a long time, petrol sales were very competitive. I remember talking to a Shell Managing Director about the way in which they needed to invest forward in refinery capacity so that they could reduce production costs to a level that would still give them a profit at a retail price that would keep them competitive in the market place. I haven't looked at any statistics lately, but my eyes tell me that the number of retail outlets has reduced dramatically and that there is therefore nothing like the level of competition that there used to be.

Within a few miles of my home there used to be eleven filling stations. Now there are only four and two of them are attached to supermarkets.

I think we can safely assume that world shortages and lack of retail competition will continue to drive up prices quite rapidly.

[Mike_B]

Petrol isn't expensive I'm afraid. Based on inflation and average earning it's no more expensive now than it was 10 years ago relatively.

You are right, but you will have a job convincing people.

In 1956, at the time of Suez the price of petrol rose to 6 shillings a gallon (30p today) and we were given petrol coupons, though they never got used as far as I am aware. I still have mine somewhere. Everyone screamed blue murder and of course at that time, £20 a week was a very good salary.

If petrol prices had kept up with wage inflation, we would be paying at least £9 a gallon now i.e. close to £2 a litre.

For a long time, petrol sales were very competitive. I remember talking to a Shell Managing Director about the way in which they needed to invest forward in refinery capacity so that they could reduce production costs to a level that would still give them a profit at a retail price that would keep them competitive in the market place. I haven't looked at any statistics lately, but my eyes tell me that the number of retail outlets has reduced dramatically and that there is therefore nothing like the level of competition that there used to be.

Within a few miles of my home there used to be eleven filling stations. Now there are only four and two of them are attached to supermarkets.

I think we can safely assume that world shortages and lack of retail competition will continue to drive up prices quite rapidly.

All very true - in fact many petrol stations make a loss on fuel and actually survive on the shop takings. Hence the explosion in the number of mini-Tesco, M&S Simply Food, On-The-Run cafe stores etc attached the remaining service stations - 'survival of the fittest' being applied in a very visible way! Adapt and survive...

To Rikos, I remember starting work 11 years ago and driving a company car rather a lot. Diesel was roughly 60p at the time, so if wages have gone up 50% on average that would put it at about 90p a litre now, so fuel is definitely more expensive than it was 11 years ago - though how this compares to 15 years ago, or 20 years ago, or 7 years ago, I don't know.

[Bazza]

interesting ;)

petrol prices over the last hundred years or so

[Rob's Lexx]

estimations are predicting 1.50 a litre by September.... :shutit:

[Hostile Smoker]

interesting ;)

petrol prices over the last hundred years or so

It would be interesting to have the figures for the last couple of years on there, as from 2002 - 2005 the tax% dropped every year.

Interesting also to note that super unleaded has a lower tax% than standard unleaded and diesel pretty much every year it's recorded - yet it's always more expensive than standard unleaded...

[LexAzur]

In France we are paying only €1.37 cents per litre, I am afraid to say you guy's are being RIPPED OFF !!!!!!!!

[dave1]

In France we are paying only €1.37 cents per litre, I am afraid to say you guy's are being RIPPED OFF !!!!!!!!

At the current tourist rate of Euro 1.2 to £1 sterling, I make it that you are paying £1.09 per litre.

[Dave-Ellen]

when i started driving it was 73p a gallon..............................

[dave1]

when i started driving it was 73p a gallon..............................

78p a gallon when I started, but that was in old money-about 32p equivalent per gallon or about 7p a litre.

[PCIronmike]

What I don't understand is , why is the tax so high on it , seems to me that the govrnment is having their cake and eating it , then having second and thirds even , its tax tax tax tax , why the F**k do people wan't to come here ??

We would of been better off losing WW2 , this country's gone to pot chaps!

[Rillo]

Try and be positive - petrol is still cheaper than beer!!!

[pacemaker]

i dont believe in the % taking

the more crude goes up the more they make which is taking the p.ss!

they should just pick an amount per gallon then increase it every year inline with inflation

that is' 20 years ago they made about £1 on every gallon now they get £375

has inflation gone up 275% in 20 years?

or am i talking boll..ks?