To want to buy oil by country of origin

[raranah]

There are several oil producing countries I wish I didn't support by indirectly buying their oil. Its impossible with the current system.

I'd much rather pay a few pennies a litre to buy oil from countries that I approve of. I know I'm in the tiny minority, as most people seem to only care about themselves.

But being able to boycott fuel from some countries should be possible these days right?

It's a world market. Have a think about how it is produced and refined - crude oil from many different countries is fed into European refineries. It would be impractical, if not impossible.

I know misti. But it must be possible , but probabably not the demand for it.

I dont want to use less, I want to not support Saudi.

So refineries have a vat of Saudi crude, a vat of Venezuelan crude, a vat of Canadian crude, a vat of Norwegian crude, and so on. And they process them all separately so you can select from 27 different petrol pumps according to your current preference in global ethics?

I dare say that this would cost more than a few extra pennies a litre.

Don't forget Russian crude, via their pipeline into Europe. Thinking about it, there's not a regime in that list I approve of.....

It would be unworkable or prohibitively expensive. Do you propose to have different pumps on petrol station forecourts for oil from different countries?

Different crude oils contain different molecules, basically long ones and short ones (also branched/unbranched and with and without rings). To make a range of products, from ethane for polymers to tar for roads, in the right quantities, you may well have to blend the crudes. You can make short chains out of long chains, and vice versa, but it's a lot easier and cheaper to separate them from a crude oil where they already exist. As far as I remember middle eastern crudes are "light" so they have a lot of useful materials for petrol and diesel while North Sea crude is heavier and has more long chains. "Cracking" long chains is realatively expensive.

I can understand you point OP as I don't agree with the morals/ethics and practices of various countries but it just wouldn't be workable as others have said. And if it was it would cost considerably more that a few pennies per litre.

I don't know the cost where you are but ours is currently 30ppl - at it's peak a couple of years ago it was 70ppl so at the moment I would take it from anywhere.

When put like that, I'm struggling to see which country I would think it's morally accetable to buy oil from. We can't all just have Norwegian oil only.

even if you don't have oil heating and don't drive a car, you do something that uses oil or its byproducts. There's no escape.

So what countries would you like to buy from?

Nice idea but just not practical. Also many British companies benefit from oil production and employ huge numbers of British workers in countries where you may prefer not to buy oil from

There are so many dodgy countries that produce oil (and gas) that tbh I think if you're serious about doing less business with them then the best way to do this is to reduce your consumption of energy and of oil-derived products (plastics etc).

Completely impracticable.

it's in an awful lot of things.

I'd buy uk, Norwegian and Canadian.

So we should just give up and carry on buying stuff from countries with awful human rights?

Not Argentinian or American or Danish or Mexican or Azerbaijani or........

(ignoring the fact that the US doesn't export much oil)

Do you know how many countries produce oil, OP?

The UK doesn't export much at all, so you're already using the extent of the UK supply.

So you'd be OK with the Canadian tar sands stuff? And what has Denmark done to upset you?

Is it just a human rights thing or is there an environmental consideration as well?

So no Saudi oil but you are happy with Russian gas?

Canadian tar sands really ought not to be on the "ethical oil" list :-/

There is very little oil (or gas) production that doesn't have "issues". Hence my suggestion to just use less of it if you possibly can.