Day Of Action On Fuel Prices

[hawk20]

DAY OF ACTION ON DIESEL PRICES
Haulage company staff are taking their lorries to London to protest against "the rocketing price of diesel". The protest will begin at the Medway Services on the M2 in Kent and will end with a rally in Park Lane in central London.
Organisers of the protest hope that hundreds of people will take part.
A delegation from the protest will hand in a symbolic coffin to the Houses of Parliament. The delegation will be received by Derek Wyatt, Labour MP for the Kent constituency of Sittingbourne and Sheppey.
Protesters will hand in a letter summarising their grievances together with a copy of the Burns Inquiry undertaken over two years ago. The inquiry document advised the Government and the haulage industry of the problems affecting the industry and set out ways to overcome them.
The organisers are angry that in the last 12 months, the price of diesel at the pumps has surged by 30%. The typical articulated vehicles that people see on the roads delivering goods now cost up to £1,000 in fuel a week.
Mike Presneill, one of the protest organisers said: "Our industry is the lifeblood of the UK economy. Fuel is rising on a daily basis. It is now at levels that are bankrupting hundreds of small and medium-sized haulage companies.
"These are the companies that have been built up through hard work often over generations. To add insult to injury, foreign hauliers are arriving in the UK full to the brim with cheaper fuel and undercutting our rates. They are literally destroying our industry.
"They contribute nothing to our economy, take our jobs, wear out our roads and put nothing into the Exchequer. The Government is standing by and watching this happen.'
The organisers said they had the co-operation of the Metropolitan Police for the protest. Mr Presneill added: "This is a peaceful and lawful protest. We do not wish to inconvenience the public and we know that the British people are behind us in this cause. All participants will adhere to the letter of the law."

 

[Stratman]

I heard one of their spokesmen interviewed on Radio 5.

He seemed less interested in lowering the price of Diesel for us plebs, rather he was asking for a "Special Rebate" for "Essential Users", which of course included him.

I still remember the slow drift in emphasis from the instigators of the last fuel protests. They started off demanding an overall reduction in fuel duty but by the time it ended their demand had shifted to "Special fuel for hauliers"

 

[verytalldave]

As much as I dont want to be seen as a defeatist - but what a waste of time.
It will accomplish nothing.
But I would love to be proved wrong.
If anything, the government probably has its sights set on increasing fuel taxation.
Someone has to pay for the Northern Rock Fiasco.

 

[glojo]

The only day a protest gets maximum attention is a Wednesday. Every MP, every newspaper political editor is at the Commons, yet this group choose a Tuesday, bad planning and I doubt it will achieve anything. We are an oil producing nation that can influence the price of oil, but we don't.

John

 

[Geezer]

I think we produce so little now in the scheme of things that we could not influence anyone, except the Isle of Wight, maybe!!

 

[LeighW]

I hope they remember to pay the congestion charge.

 

[jadefox]

My husband gets a coach from Medway Serives to work each day and apart from a few media people there was about half a dozen lorries there and a few drivers milling about LOL!

Think we need to take lessons from the French on demonstrating!

 

[andy_k]

according to the BBC there was about 65 trucks - well that showed the government then didn't it?

Half a***d (oops that slipped through the swear filter ) protests serve no purpose, in fact they just leave the protesters wide open to ridicule and show them how isolated they are

Now, if every truck in Britain had stopped where it was for 15 minutes at a preset time - that would have shown some sort of unity

Andy

 

[raymont]

How could we influence the price of oil?

Price is set by supply and demand.

Where are we in the league of producers? 14th or 15th?

The government could cetainly affect the price at the pump as some 60+% of the price we pay is tax. Not likely though as Gordon needs all the money he can get and the tax on fuel and the oil cos profits is a tax bonus he's pretty unlikely to give back.

 

[verytalldave]

2006 was the last audited figures for worldwide crude oil extraction.

In that year the UK produced 1.49 MBPD out of a worldwide total of 73.47 MBPD.
About 2% of world total.

What is interesting is that non-OPEC countries accounted for well over half of all crude oil extraction in 2006. 42.8 MBPD.

 

[glojo]

I think we produce so little now in the scheme of things that we could not influence anyone, except the Isle of Wight, maybe!!

We only need to influence ourselves; we sell our oil and we cannot complain when we ourselves raise the price. It costs no more today to extract this liquid gold, than it did yesterday.

Taxation is a seperate issue and this country must fund itself, and the option of choice is fuel, to list other options would be a slippery slope into a political debate and I'm not sure of the Monster Raving Lonny Parties policy on this..... Note to self,
Find out .

 

[raymont]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but Ithinlk that the oil cos have licences to extract the oil and it is then theirs to sell. They will clearly sell it for as much as possible. They pay tax on these sales.

This contrasts with countries such as Kuwait, Saudi, etc. where the oil co is a nationaised industry and therefore under government control.

 

[imadoofus]

We've heard today that Shell and BP have made profits of £7bn between then in the first three months of this year.

Whilst I agree that taxes on fuel are very high, surely some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of the oil companies?

 

[BTB 500]

We've heard today that Shell and BP have made profits of £7bn between then in the first three months of this year.

Whilst I agree that taxes on fuel are very high, surely some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of the oil companies?

Why? Virtually none of that profit comes from selling fuel in the UK ... that's why forecourts have been closing steadily for years.

 

[gbjeppm]

We've heard today that Shell and BP have made profits of £7bn between then in the first three months of this year.

Whilst I agree that taxes on fuel are very high, surely some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of the oil companies?

I am interested to know why? genuine question.

I wrote this in another post

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=543361&postcount=41

The profits of both of these global companies are in the region of 6% of turnover. They employ hundreds of thousands of people around the globe, their stock is invested in by most of the UK pension companies and they pay tax on profits in the UK.

I know the numbers are big, but so is the investment and risk. The retail margins in the UK at the expense of the motorist are miniscule, and is only a smokescreen for the government take.

Personally I don't think a 6% profit margin is excessive, much higher percentage profits exist in lots of other sectors, but just don't have the headline grabbing size.

Also as I understand it, it would break anti-competition law to subsidise the forecourt with exploration/production revenues, as the Non Integrated Fuel Sellers (e.g the supermarkets) etc could not compete.

 

[BTB 500]

Yup the profit comes from other activities (exploration, production, chemicals, trading, etc.) and much of it is made outside the UK.

 

[Benzowner]

Why? Virtually none of that profit comes from selling fuel in the UK ... that's why forecourts have been closing steadily for years.

Forecourts have been closing steadilly for years because there in little or no profit for the forecourt owners. There is still a largish profit on petrol for the oil companies.

 

[gbjeppm]

Forecourts have been closing steadilly for years because there in little or no profit for the forecourt owners. There is still a largish profit on petrol for the oil companies.

As I said 6% across all activities, not as big as the goverments "profit" for not doing anything tangible

 

[raymont]

We've heard today that Shell and BP have made profits of £7bn between then in the first three months of this year.

Whilst I agree that taxes on fuel are very high, surely some of the blame needs to be laid at the feet of the oil companies?

What would you have them do? They're only doing what any company would do, selling their product for the best price they can get. Supply and demand. If they didn't do this they'd have a new set of directors pretty rapidly.

I'm not happy about the price, but this is the way it works.

The only lever the govt has is tax. Yes the govt needs tax but this is windfall, it's more than the gov't budgetted. That's why they should consider helping us suffering consumers.

 

[imadoofus]

Another genuine question Bill. How do the oil companies make profits from exploration and production if not from selling the end products?