Diesel

[shaunwil]

It does but there is one thing eating at me. Surely the process is a 24/7 operation. Surely the refining stack can\'t be easily turned off. Since the demand has been quite high for a while how much of the cost is in enabling the correct cost effective supply ?

It\'s scarey to think the refiners and garages are probably making the least out of the whole chain of companies. Bet hedge funds make more money.

Shaun

[jetpilot]

Just done a little reading.

October 2007 a barrel of oil was just over $90, petrol price £.95, diesel £1.03

So, almost exactly the same price as a barrel of oil now, yet petrol is £1.25, diesel £1.30

Somehow this just makes the prices today even more farcical. It looks like duty has gone up roughly 10p in that time.

[jetpilot]

It does but there is one thing eating at me. Surely the process is a 24/7 operation. Surely the refining stack can\'t be easily turned off. Since the demand has been quite high for a while how much of the cost is in enabling the correct cost effective supply ?

It\'s scarey to think the refiners and garages are probably making the least out of the whole chain of companies. Bet hedge funds make more money.

Shaun

I live in Poole and Bp have the Wytch Farm oil field which has been running a very long time now, although they are scaling down. The oil is pumped direct to Fawley, during the peak time some 25,000 barrels a day, a day...............

[captainbizzaro]

BP have got an oil slick to pay for!

[Nik da Greek]

I think the bald truth of it is that the government/oil companies charge what they can get away with. There\'s no sense, justification or ecobabble behind it, they simply rape the living fduk out of the motorist BECAUSE THEY CAN! What choice do we as motorists have? Thatcher\'s desecration of the coutry\'s ability to work and manufacture created a generation who have to travel to find/do work, and then successive governments have gleefully kicked that generation right in the boIIocks for doing it. What choice? None. Public transport cant cope with the passenger numbers it currently supports, let alone if everyone else were to leave the car at home. How does a tradesman carry all his tools to a worksite? Train, then bus or pushbike with tens of kilos of tools? How do travelling midwives, bankers, insurance consultants, travel agents, window fitters, carpetlayers, and all the other hundreds of trades who rely on transport to cover the patch they service get about? A patch, by the way, that what with cutbacks and redrawing of administration boundaries and so on and so on with the current economic climate that gets larger and larger all the time (for the same pay and hours, of course!).

It\'s not just the working classes who are forced onto the road either, the traditionally loved middle classes of the Tory heartland are feeling what it\'s like to be a cash cow now as well. We live in a culture that has made it impossible for many families to survive on a single wage, so both parents are working and the people they then have to rely on all have to travel; the supermarket delivery service bacuse they don\'t have time to shop, the school bus because they\'re at work longer than the school hours and cant take little Johnny to school themselves, the cleaner because they\'re too knackered when they finish their twelve hour day to do the hoovering, etc etc. They made us into a nomadic nation, all whizzing around in our personal transport like sharks sniffing for the first hint of fresh blood in the water that signals life-giving work...and the bosses and corporate fatcats sat back and rubbed their hands with glee and kept pressing the button that\'s marked "Fuel price increase" because they know we have no damn choice but to pay it.

And then they tell me I can save the world by buying a Toyota Prius!? There are, in the immortal doctrine of CRASS, no words for my contempt.....

[Will66]

I would argue that the desecration of manufacturing is a combination of the Union\'s unrealistic demands and poor working practises and Thatcherite desire for the nation\'s economy not to be slave to the demands of the Trade Unions.

[shaunwil]

The current cost is caused by the weaker pound. The government has pumped money into the money markets and destroyed the value of the pound. Great if we still had a strong manufacturing element to our economy and strong exports.

Yes the trade unions where too powerful and we ruined huge sways of manfacturing, but it is almost gone apart from more quality and hi-tec development. But how long before the government sells these thing down the river.

Shaun

[jetpilot]

Here is a thing i never get with regard to british industry/business.

Granite worktops as an example, granite is now sent to China to be worked on as its cheaper. That means, put on a ship, sent to china, worked on and shipped back.....and that works out cheaper than someone doing it here!!

I see the constant rise in fuel also impacting heavily on industry.

I heard last night on springwatch the gov is currently investigating whether to sell of parts off forest commission land for development, hardly green, which is why i hate the whole, taxing fuel because of the green debate!

[Nik da Greek]

Yeah, the eco shlt is only ever a smokescreen and a feeble justification for more taxes. Tax, any tax is simply the highest they think they can get away with pure and simple, but sometimes they put a cherry on top of the turd pie to make it look pretty and make it easier for people to swallow. It used to be cheaper to buy a Triumph motorcycle in America and import it, paying all the import and registration duties than it was to buy it at a dealership in Leicestershire where the bike was built. Again, how is it possible to justify that sort of lunacy? They don\'t even try nowadays, they have the built-in excuse for all ridiculous taxes by just trotting out the recession-recovery mantra

[Hi RX7]

A number of my friends who run/own large engineering firms all say the same thing the work is going out to China and there is no support to keep the work here so you are very much on your own and its not suprising. Until recently I have been having made a composite lining material for my business from the E.U. and have been paying over £200 for a roll for this material having been approached by a Chinese company to make this, I thought as many others do/did that it will be a cheap, badly produced fact simarly but to my total amazement they have produced a product for 1/3 the cost yes thats 1/3 the cost and its a higher spec. I have no doubt that the unions in the seventies started the decline but the main problem in my opinion is the wave of rubbish Health and Safety requirements dreampt up by people in the E.U. with nothing better to do other than think up ways of obstructing and increasing the cost of production in this country but as we have all concluded the price of fuel is just adding to all manufacturing and transport costs so its going to go to China I still can\'t believe how cheap it is to ship goods from China so there must be a cost to pay further down the line.

[Hi RX7]

If you were a cynical person you might think that all our work will go to China we lose all our manufacturing expertise and close down for business relying solely on China, then bang they quadrurple the price and take over the world. Just heard on the news that China are stopping the export of some mineral used in Prius type vehicle batteries so there is some positive side to all news.

[shaunwil]

The biggest problem we are seeing that our management wants stuff to be made in china. They don\'t seem to think about the time it is sat on a ship, the time it takes if something is wrong.

Plus all the replacement stuff we are buying (plastic parts with simple electronics) has major faults in the preproduction stuff. They wont fix it when they ship a container load.

There are a lot of companies moving back because of all the hassle with China, but eastern Europe not the UK.

Don\'t think we will get out of this mess now regardless what the government does. Which is a real shame.

Shaun

[jetpilot]

I remember very well the whole price issue when it came to bikes Mr Greek, grey imports flooding in from all over and as you mention, the fact you could buy a british built bike cheaper when it was a grey import even though it had been exported and then imported.
And the british bike dealers answer, you have been prepared to pay the uk delaer prices so why sell them for less, supply and demand! So the same goes for fuel, they know we are prepared to pay, hence the price is what it is!

I also agree the whole EU rubbish is really something we need to get away from, within the building industry there are new rules and regs we have to meet almost daily, the same as any other eu country, the big difference is though, go to spain say, they have the same rules and regs but quite frankly, no one gives a sh*t or adheres to them, its only here where we follow everything to the letter and have people employed to make sure we apply the rules to the letter, which just costs more and more money. They want cheap social housing, but it just cant be done anymore, building is a minefield these days, especially with this energy efficiency we have to go on.

I guess whats costing this country the most at the moment is the amount of wars we have been and are in, this must be adding to our debt daily.

[Nik da Greek]

I like the attitude towards building in Greece...a new build is ony taxed when it\'s complete, which is why they all submit planning for a three-storey house then build only two. That\'s why you see all those concrete half-finished houses with re-bar sticking out the roofs, so they can claim they\'re not finished yet and dodge the tax. Only works if you don\'t mind living in a really crap-looking house though, I suppose!

[Will66]

The cost of the armed conflict we\'re not involved in is borne by the MOD within standard operating budgets.  It\'s why we\'re loosing ships and aircraft.