Fuel prices (petrol & diesel)

[Bayleaf]

I'm certainly allowing a little extra time to get to and from work, keeping light on the peddle and hopefully more economic - and cruising downhill without touching the accelerator as much as possible!

[exile]

I am afraid @Hotrodder that that simple idea misses the point that oil prices are driven by supply and demand. If supply is reduced and demand stays the same, the price will rise. Nothing necessarily to do with greedy producing nations putting up their prices. Oil and its bulk products are essentially auctioned. Highest bidder wins. I have known cases (and we have seen a few in the news recently as well) where a ship has sailed on its way to port A. Underway the cargo is sold (at a profit) and the ship changes to land at port B. It is sold again and the destination becomes port C - and in one case it ended up being discharged at port D after a further sale. In the meantime 3 owners of the cargo have made a nice profit.
The price is not therefore set by greedy producers but by desperate consumers.

Surely your example reinforces Hotrodder's argument that greed can be a reason.

Not as he wrote it:

What bites me in the butt is why all the other non-Russian sources immediately put their prices up.

Greedy capitalist pigs!

You might argue that it is greed of the consumer. However think on this:

How many of you owned a house in the UK. You bought it for what seemed like a lot of money at the time. When you came to sell it did you:
1. Take the best offer made (based on price offered and speed to get the sale)
2. Sell it for what you bought it for adjusted for inflation
3. As above but also adding in the costs you have incurred improving the property
4. Sell it for what you bought it for - after all YOU are not a nasty capitalist pig.

[L Austin France]

I am afraid @Hotrodder that that simple idea misses the point that oil prices are driven by supply and demand. If supply is reduced and demand stays the same, the price will rise. Nothing necessarily to do with greedy producing nations putting up their prices. Oil and its bulk products are essentially auctioned. Highest bidder wins. I have known cases (and we have seen a few in the news recently as well) where a ship has sailed on its way to port A. Underway the cargo is sold (at a profit) and the ship changes to land at port B. It is sold again and the destination becomes port C - and in one case it ended up being discharged at port D after a further sale. In the meantime 3 owners of the cargo have made a nice profit.
The price is not therefore set by greedy producers but by desperate consumers.

Surely your example reinforces Hotrodder's argument that greed can be a reason.

Not as he wrote it:

What bites me in the butt is why all the other non-Russian sources immediately put their prices up.

Greedy capitalist pigs!

You might argue that it is greed of the consumer. However think on this:

How many of you owned a house in the UK. You bought it for what seemed like a lot of money at the time. When you came to sell it did you:
1. Take the best offer made (based on price offered and speed to get the sale)
2. Sell it for what you bought it for adjusted for inflation
3. As above but also adding in the costs you have incurred improving the property
4. Sell it for what you bought it for - after all YOU are not a nasty capitalist pig.

Nice try but that's a ridiculous argument when most folk sell & buy at current market rates whilst usually increasing their mortgage as they 'move up' the property ladder.
Some, such as me, sold when consolidating their UK assets into cash when moving to live in France. I also sold my company, which I had worked hard at making a success, for a substantial sum for the same reason. Neither sale was done with profit in mind. I was not a professsional property/business entrepreneur just an average bloke who worked hard all of his life & sold his assets at the current market price.........once.
It doesn't make me a nasty capitalist pig but likewise it also doesn't make me a bloody fool who wants to give my assets away.
Your 'tale' of an oil cargo passing through several 'owners' who each jacked up the price because they could ,before it was finally sold to Joe Public, is nothing like an average person selling & buying their primary residence & well you know it, or at least you should.

[Oldblueraincoat]

Back to the original thread - this afternoon in our SuperU supermarket Gasoil was 2.39 a litre - which is an enormous price hike since Sunday when it was 1.89 and it's only going to go one way - UP

[niemeyjt]

I notice the Euro is weak at the moment - at one point this week it hit parity with the CHF - so that may have an impact too (on fuel prices, not house prices)

[Blaze]

Back to the original thread - this afternoon in our SuperU supermarket Gasoil was 2.39 a litre - which is an enormous price hike since Sunday when it was 1.89 and it's only going to go one way - UP

I have to confess, we're going up to our little Intermarché with our fuel cans after closing this evening to top up with petrol (not that we have many fuel cans ....)

I don't remember ever having seen diesel more expensive than petrol (in France).

[exile]

Surely your example reinforces Hotrodder's argument that greed can be a reason.

Not as he wrote it:

What bites me in the butt is why all the other non-Russian sources immediately put their prices up.

Greedy capitalist pigs!

You might argue that it is greed of the consumer. However think on this:

How many of you owned a house in the UK. You bought it for what seemed like a lot of money at the time. When you came to sell it did you:
1. Take the best offer made (based on price offered and speed to get the sale)
2. Sell it for what you bought it for adjusted for inflation
3. As above but also adding in the costs you have incurred improving the property
4. Sell it for what you bought it for - after all YOU are not a nasty capitalist pig.

Nice try but that's a ridiculous argument when most folk sell & buy at current market rates whilst usually increasing their mortgage as they 'move up' the property ladder.
Some, such as me, sold when consolidating their UK assets into cash when moving to live in France. I also sold my company, which I had worked hard at making a success, for a substantial sum for the same reason. Neither sale was done with profit in mind. I was not a professsional property/business entrepreneur just an average bloke who worked hard all of his life & sold his assets at the current market price.........once.
It doesn't make me a nasty capitalist pig but likewise it also doesn't make me a bloody fool who wants to give my assets away.
Your 'tale' of an oil cargo passing through several 'owners' who each jacked up the price because they could ,before it was finally sold to Joe Public, is nothing like an average person selling & buying their primary residence & well you know it, or at least you should.

You have misinterpreted what I wrote. Yes the price was jacked up because they could however they only could because the "current market rate " (your words) changed. This is not speculators hoping to make a fast buck, this is end users or their agents buying and selling to keep their (client's) plants and their profits flowing.

There are speculators around but they bet on the 3 month/ 6 month/1 year price not the value of a single cargo already on its way.

If you think how much oil prices have moved in the last 2 weeks and consider that a tanker loaded in the Gulf on 24th February has probably not yet docked and then think of the price paid versus the price you could get today you may begin to understand that market prices can move very quickly.

A producer that has been using Russian crude in his refinery at perhaps 30% has now lost that supply (unless like Shell he decides to run the risk of public wrath, government wrath and shareholder wrath by buying up distressed cargoes of Russian crude). That lack of delivery has to be replaced and replaced now. The delivery time from Russia to Europe is much shorter than Gulf to EU or US to EU. At -30% output a refinery can become uneconomic and the choice then is run uneconomically or shut down. Apart from the market impact of shutting down (lost customers/broken contracts etc), it is a multi-million €uro/pound/dollar decision. Running these plants is not like driving your car. Press a button/turn the key and away you go. Shutting down a refinery needs the whole plant to be purged of the oil and gas residues - disposed of to burning as the only safe way to do it. Starting up is equally damaging to the wallet. It will therefore pay some operators to pay over the then odds to keep a plant running. So if one buyer is topping up his stock but a second buyer comes along who really needs oil to keep his plant running and offers a lot more, he may make the decision that he can still keep his plant running and will sell the cargo. That price then feeds back to the price at loading and impacts on it. It will not necessarily go to that new level but it is likely to increase. That increase spiral continues until someone says "enough".

Although you don't want to believe it - probably because it makes you feel uncomfortable (me too) - the situation is exactly analogous to house selling/buying. There is a market price but in times of shortage that price can be flexible. Someone who wants to move (current house a bit too small and not really where they want to live) can be gazumped/outbid by someone who needs to move (new job miles away from their current home). They may well pay over the odds and so push the market price.

[niemeyjt]

Back from my walk, past my usual filling station:

SP95 = 2.35, SP98 = 2.45 and Diesel+ = 2.49

CHF1 = €0.98 - so that is €2.30, €2.40 and €2.44

And I have to fill up next week.

[L Austin France]

Although you don't want to believe it - probably because it makes you feel uncomfortable (me too) - the situation is exactly analogous to house selling/buying. There is a market price but in times of shortage that price can be flexible. Someone who wants to move (current house a bit too small and not really where they want to live) can be gazumped/outbid by someone who needs to move (new job miles away from their current home). They may well pay over the odds and so push the market price.

[DominicBest]

Still astonishing, so early in the year, to hear people already mowing their grass. Surely it can't be that long already? We don't start mowing until at least the end of March for clients - and even then it's usually only once a month/every three weeks? Grass might be allowed to grow a little longer (and the accompanying lawn flowers).

I’ve had to cut the grass twice in a week. If it had been left any longer between cuts it would have been far harder to manage with my mowers. Once April arrives it’s always been a cut every 5-7 days up until at least June when the grass slows down. Once a month would mean knee high grass during the spring.