Petrol - not sure if this would work...

[quint]

Was sent this email yesterday. What do you think?

See what you think and pass it on if you agree with it

We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever
thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place
not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not
purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!

Now, don't wimp out at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it... ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e. boycott BP and Esso

WW - totally agree - well put.

Meant to add - where we are we can shop around if so inlcined and buy chaepest available. In rural areas you are either stuck with the local petrol station, or hav to drive miles to buy elsewhere so completely pointless.

Quint, do you have stock in Shell? Total?

This proposal is silly because people will just be driving further (using more petrol) to avoid their local petrol station. And therefore in the end buying more fuel from the market.

Personally, I prefer to support the country in hich I reside. So, I generally buy BP.

Also, I'm puzzled by "the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP". Are you confusing Esso(Exxon) with Amoco?

I still feel utterly dismayed that so many agreed with the fatuous suggestions in the OP.

That's because everyone loves to hate the big bad oil companies. I understood your strawberry theory perfect well.

The price of oil is not going to go down any time soon because demand isn't going to go down any time soon.

Did you see that Russia raided BPs offices again? (There was a story on the BBC today). It wasn't because they think the price of oil is going down.

Oh and here is something else that people may find interesting. Independant oil companies do not hold the majority of the extractable reserves around the world. Most of the world's oil is owned and controlled by state oil companies (Venezuela, middle east,Russia, etc.) They are the big boys of whom you should be afraid (especially Russia which is technically independant but not really)

The price of oil has gone from something like $25 dollars a barrell to $129 dollars a barrell in the past few years. In the UK we are cushioned by the high tax. In the US they are really hurting. And there are predictions now that it will reach $200 a barrel before year's end.

I do hope it comes down a bit, and think it might fluctuate a lot over the next few years. But the winters are going to be tough and we should probably try and prepare for that as best we can - by investing in insulation, fuel efficient cars, bicycles etc!

Petrol forecourts add 1p per litre on every Friday - because that's the day most of us fill up (according to the Sunday Times).

But the high prices we pay at the pump have a lot more to do with the amount of tax the government collects than it does the price for a barrel of oil. See here.

Also, whilst oil prices are very high, keep in mind that it is partly due to the low value of the dollar.

Now, do you think Grodon would be willing to give up some his revenue for the sake of the country's economy? No? Me neither. But I did notice today that he has awarded the building of the new aircrat carriers to his constituency. (a yard in Rosyth)

We have just had a Prius on rental and were amazed at how much less petrol it used (especially compared with the gas guzzling Jeep we had before that). I really think that energy efficiency is the way to go. Fewer journeys and more efficient cars.

Nooka - exactly right. We are going to have to change our expectations, and adjust our behaviours. I experimented today cycling a joueny that takes me about 15 mins each way by car. It took me 20 mins one way by bike ( downhill) and 25 mins coming back ( uphill!). I saved time by not having to stop in queues of traffic and being able to take short cuts. I would nomally just get in the car without thinking. Now I know i won't cycle it all the time because today was a sunny day and i had the luxury of not having the DC with me, and having the extra few minutes . (BTW the same journey by bus takes about 40 mins each way

No I don't - it was an email I was sent - not seen it before, put it on here as recently I've seen a few posts about the price of fuel.

I asked a question - what did people think, I even said, not sure it would work. Obviously people don;t think it will so there we go.

So why has diesel suddenly jumped from 1-2p more than unleaded to 10p more?

Surely if they lower their prices though it will be gradual - by 1 or 2p a litre. Then everyone who has 'signed up' to the suggestion in the email will flock striaght back to them as they'll be cheaper than the supermarkets?
They aren't just suddenly going to take 40p/L off

(all 3 million of them )
Think we should all get cars like my son's red plastic one - it's very economical