Energy Bills

[markavfc40]

This is from Tamworth services earlier this morning.

[Genie]

37 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

This is from Tamworth services earlier this morning.

Which you can see the refinery in Kingsbury from. 

[bickster]

Current fuel prices are also proving that the Tory mantra of market forces will sort this out, is yet again a complete load of bollocks

[blandy]

17 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

The Daily Mail are currently on the march with Farage's army - only fracking can see us through the energy crisis apparently.

They’re (Cuadrilla) just starting to plug (permanently close the drilling hole, not “advertise”) the Preston New Road fracking site. Whatever grift rent-a-gob Farage, or throbby lobby CRG denialism whoppers say, I really can’t see fracking being the answer for the UK, or being the way we go.

[LondonLax]

13 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

it's profiteering from the news, nothing more. How can the BP be selling fuel for £1.68 litre when on the opposite side of the road 50 metres away ESSR (I care not if it's got no additives) are selling it for £1.52  litre. It's bull****

I feel like there must be more to it than meets the eye. Maybe BP have a different supplier or maybe some companies have higher storage volumes or bought at a cheaper/fixed future price etc? 

[bickster]

30 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

I feel like there must be more to it than meets the eye. Maybe BP have a different supplier or maybe some companies have higher storage volumes or bought at a cheaper/fixed future price etc? 

BP are their own supplier, so are Shell and Essar. These companies have no middle men, they refine their own product. The supermarkets don’t, they buy in bulk off the companies with refineries. Sure the supermarkets normally undercut by a few pence a litre (loss leader theory) but the disparity currently is HUGE

[LondonLax]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

BP are their own supplier, so are Shell and Essar. These companies have no middle men, they refine their own product. The supermarkets don’t, they buy in bulk off the companies with refineries. Sure the supermarkets normally undercut by a few pence a litre (loss leader theory) but the disparity currently is HUGE

Ok but perhaps it's a case of the supermarkets buying in bulk when the price was cheaper and once that stock runs out they will need to match the new market price?

 

[bickster]

And here's the big kick in the teeth of all of this...

A lot forecourts are branded franchises, the biggest owner of these franchises is a company called Euro Garages (you may have heard of them), they are recognisable across all the brands due to the EG logo

Now these franchises have the ability to set their own prices (I suspect there's a lower limit from the refiners). EG have always been priced highly for fuel. So then what happens is EG force the price up everywhere because all the companies set their prices to what the market will bear as they search all the local prices and set them accordingly (even the supermarkets do this)

Now moving on to supermarkets, pretty much everywhere I've been, ASDA are usually the cheapest but ASDA generally have no staff, they are all pay by card at the pump and that's how they undercut the rest, much lower staff costs.

Have a guess which garage forecourt company have made so much money by jacking up the fuel prices that they managed to buy ASDA from Walmart a year or so ago?

Yep. Euro Garages. So Euro Garages now have a position where they control the top and bottom ranges of fuel in this country

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Ok but perhaps it's a case of the supermarkets buying in bulk when the price was cheaper and once that stock runs out they will need to match the new market price?

 

Nope, the supermarkets put the prices up a day or so after the normal forecourts because they pitch their prices a few pence per litre below the local level at the traditional forecourts

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Current fuel prices are also proving that the Tory mantra of market forces will sort this out, is yet again a complete load of bollocks

But surely high prices will make renewables more viable and the high price incentivise users to consume less and therefore reduce carbon emissions.

This is what Green lobby has been demanding and what all parties tell us has been their aspiration.

All manufaturing will move to China and India and we all get to live in the green and pleasant land, we are told everyone wants.

There might be a few downsides but as Caroline Lucas has said, a country should not be judged by its GDP alone.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

They’re (Cuadrilla) just starting to plug (permanently close the drilling hole, not “advertise”) the Preston New Road fracking site. Whatever grift rent-a-gob Farage, or throbby lobby CRG denialism whoppers say, I really can’t see fracking being the answer for the UK, or being the way we go.

It's absolutely not, and I'd see the site closures as a victory for common sense - but the ability of big companies and big money to take advantage of a crisis shouldn't be underestimated. Climate denial is cover for the protection of profit and Farage is a useful marketing tool, here's hoping we can keep him shtum.

 

[Genie]

35 minutes ago, bickster said:

And here's the big kick in the teeth of all of this...

A lot forecourts are branded franchises, the biggest owner of these franchises is a company called Euro Garages (you may have heard of them), they are recognisable across all the brands due to the EG logo

Now these franchises have the ability to set their own prices (I suspect there's a lower limit from the refiners). EG have always been priced highly for fuel. So then what happens is EG force the price up everywhere because all the companies set their prices to what the market will bear as they search all the local prices and set them accordingly (even the supermarkets do this)

Now moving on to supermarkets, pretty much everywhere I've been, ASDA are usually the cheapest but ASDA generally have no staff, they are all pay by card at the pump and that's how they undercut the rest, much lower staff costs.

Have a guess which garage forecourt company have made so much money by jacking up the fuel prices that they managed to buy ASDA from Walmart a year or so ago?

Yep. Euro Garages. So Euro Garages now have a position where they control the top and bottom ranges of fuel in this country

The 2 guys that built the petrol garage empire then bought ASDA were told they had to sell a lot of the petrol stations I think (for the reasons you mentioned).

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

But surely high prices will make renewables more viable and the high price incentivise users to consume less and therefore reduce carbon emissions.

This is what Green lobby has been demanding and what all parties tell us has been their aspiration.

All manufaturing will move to China and India and we all get to live in the green and pleasant land, we are told everyone wants.

There might be a few downsides but as Caroline Lucas has said, a country should not be judged by its GDP alone.

In terms of Domestic and Industrial energy (as in, not motor fuel) Renewably generated energy is already (and has been for a while) the cheapest to produce. That gap will only widen with the current Oil and Gas supply and demand farago.

Domestic (nationally) produced electricity fed into the grid provides security compared with undersea cables from France's reactors. And the price could be representative of the creation costs. But this is where it, (and I) get confused. A lot of UK electricity comes from gas fired power stations. So the cost of electricity production generally  rises as gas prices rise. Then though not massive, levies are placed on the cost of electricity to fund the transition to green electricity. But it's all electricity, not just fossil fuel lecky. But the burden on Gas (for heating) is not currently increased in the same way, or to the same extent, which seems odd. And further to that, the UK produces quite a lot of Gas from the North Sea, but sells it and prices it according to international market rates. It's not state owned, where the Gov't could set the price.

In other words, the market, private industry, fossil fuel companies, government actions and inactions all contribute to our UK energy costs and pricing and market being tilted.

If the UK were to have a more mature and comprehensive renewable energy system and a clearer system of pricing control, we'd have more, cheaper, energy capacity and be more appealing to other industries to base themselves here.

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

The 2 guys that built the petrol garage empire then bought ASDA were told they had to sell a lot of the petrol stations I think (for the reasons you mentioned).

Not noticed any changing hands yet

The five nearest to my house. Three of them are EG (2 Shell, 1 Esso), one is BP / M&S and a Tesco

The furtheest away is always 1p more than the others, The BP always puts it's price up to the level of the nearby Shell and Esso (EG) garages within 24 hours. Then in the next 24 hours the Tesco raises their prices (unless its a weekend then it happens on the Monday)

Even though the Tesco did indeed follow suit it is now still 10p a litre cheaper instead of the usual 4p

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

Not noticed any changing hands yet

The five nearest to my house. Three of them are EG (2 Shell, 1 Esso), one is BP / M&S and a Tesco

The furtheest away is always 1p more than the others, The BP always puts it's price up to the level of the nearby Shell and Esso (EG) garages within 24 hours. Then in the next 24 hours the Tesco raises their prices (unless its a weekend then it happens on the Monday)

Even though the Tesco did indeed follow suit it is now still 10p a litre cheaper instead of the usual 4p

After a quick Google it looks like the Issa brothers didn’t acquire the Asda forecourts as part of the acquisition of the stores. Due to concerns about competition they were to be part of a separate purchase from the stores (£750m) but in October last year they pulled out.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

After a quick Google it looks like the Issa brothers didn’t acquire the Asda forecourts as part of the acquisition of the stores. Due to concerns about competition they were to be part of a separate purchase from the stores (£750m) but in October last year they pulled out.

So who owns the ASDA forecourts?

[Genie]

Just now, bickster said:

So who owns the ASDA forecourts?

Walmart I assume.

[Chindie]

I follow a couple of US based people on social media who float in the same hobby circles I do. I must admit that seeing then whinge and post sarcastic memes about their petrol prices going up massively, and still being a third of the price here, is getting tiresome.

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I follow a couple of US based people on social media who float in the same hobby circles I do. I must admit that seeing then whinge and post sarcastic memes about their petrol prices going up massively, and still being a third of the price here, is getting tiresome.

I once had an American in the car as a passenger just around the time that the petrol price just hit £1 a litre for the first time

He announced to me "Jesus H Christ if fuel ever hit that price per gallon in the US there'd be a revolution" I then had to tell him that the price of a gallon was 4.55 times the price displayed

He was genuinely speechless for a short while

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

In terms of Domestic and Industrial energy (as in, not motor fuel) Renewably generated energy is already (and has been for a while) the cheapest to produce. That gap will only widen with the current Oil and Gas supply and demand farago.

Domestic (nationally) produced electricity fed into the grid provides security compared with undersea cables from France's reactors. And the price could be representative of the creation costs. But this is where it, (and I) get confused. A lot of UK electricity comes from gas fired power stations. So the cost of electricity production generally  rises as gas prices rise. Then though not massive, levies are placed on the cost of electricity to fund the transition to green electricity. But it's all electricity, not just fossil fuel lecky. But the burden on Gas (for heating) is not currently increased in the same way, or to the same extent, which seems odd. And further to that, the UK produces quite a lot of Gas from the North Sea, but sells it and prices it according to international market rates. It's not state owned, where the Gov't could set the price.

In other words, the market, private industry, fossil fuel companies, government actions and inactions all contribute to our UK energy costs and pricing and market being tilted.

If the UK were to have a more mature and comprehensive renewable energy system and a clearer system of pricing control, we'd have more, cheaper, energy capacity and be more appealing to other industries to base themselves here.

It would seem likely that you would need to nationalise the power industry to introduce price controls, and that cheap reliable energy would mean compromising Green aspirations.

At present energy is rationed by price and so a system of rationing would need to be introduced.

I might add that price controls have not got a good track record, as shortages and over-production have ofteen been the result.

The industrial revolution was only made possible by cheap energy - expensive energy promises to have the reverse affect.

Green taxes have risen by 40% since Johnson took power and I expect his predicted take of over £16bn by 2024, is a massive underestimation.

Edited March 8, 2022 by MakemineVanilla