UK Petrol Prices - ESSO and BP boycott.

[island_sands]

Guys
drinking water is more expensive than petrol here.
read this
Price of Evian wells up over ambience and trendiness - The National Newspaper

Of course, the tap water is also potable. But we all tend to want to buy "spring water".. are we all "naive?"

 

[hyeparis]

Out of solidarity, I will stop buying gasoline at BP stations in Moscow.
It is too expensive anyway at these stations so I can afford this solidarity totally )))

 

[drunkinbda]

Guys
drinking water is more expensive than petrol here.
read this
Price of Evian wells up over ambience and trendiness - The National Newspaper

Of course, the tap water is also potable. But we all tend to want to buy "spring water".. are we all "naive?"

somethign to add (although it may have been posted) Digital Journal - 1 liter Bottled Water uses 26 Liters Water + other stff

personally my reasons for drinkin tap water is that i subconsciously feel that its makin my immune system better

 

[land shark]

personally my reasons for drinkin tap water is that i subconsciously feel that its makin my immune system better

yea you gotta be careful about getting to much blood in that alcohol system.

 

[Mr. X]

... But we all tend to want to buy "spring water".. are we all "naive?"

Yes, I reckon so. Although tap water quality & taste varies from place to place. I visited Jamaica some years ago and they are very proud that their tap water is good to drink as they use a British water treatment system, unlike "the other place" (presumably competitor Mexico?). Bottled spring water has become popular in the UK too - crazy but better than drinking cola I suppose. Malvern (Margaret Thatcher's preferred mineral water), Buxton & various Scottish spring waters seem popular & usually considerably cheaper the high volume euro brands. If you happen to be in the Malverns, there are spring outlets specially set up near the road so that you can fill your own containers easily for free. The little bottles are handy though - I refill them with tap water & take a few diving with me, I'd be happy to swap some for petrol .

 

[drunkinbda]

i live on tap water here... up until there is a massive storm (aka hurricane), or if my tank needs to get filled.

FYI we have under-house tanks and catch rainwater on roofs that get stored in these tanks.

anyway..when i get it refilled, it usually stirs up sediment and salt which makes the tap water very unrefreshing (to put it nicely). Storms do the same thing, although i think thats more salt water seeping through rocks

either or if my tank is still... that tap water is just as good as bottled to me. When i go to the states for some reason i actually enjoy the tap water. I think the minor cholorine in it gives it flavor or something...

ya...im odd at times
...and drunk at the moment
just keepin the levels up land shark!!!!!!

 

[ocean_314]

I recieved this email and it makes perfect sense.

Why has the price of oil risen so much in the past few months? is it because of an out-of-control futures market driven by the proliferation of commodity index funds and rampant speculation, as everyone tries to get in on the rise in commodity prices?

Are institutional investors in the form of large commodity index funds the reason behind the current rise not just in oil prices but in the prices of seemingly all commodities? Michael Masters, a long-short hedge fund manager, in testimony before the Congressional Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said:

"You have asked the question 'Are Institutional Investors contributing to food and energy price inflation?' And my unequivocal answer is 'YES.' In this testimony I will explain that Institutional Investors are one of, if not the primary, factors affecting commodities prices today. Clearly, there are many factors that contribute to price determination in the commodities markets; I am here to expose a fast-growing yet virtually unnoticed factor, and one that presents a problem that can be expediently corrected through legislative policy action."

You can read the entire testimony at http://www.mcadforums.com/forums/files/michael_masters_written_testimony.pdf, but let's hear the basics of his argument:

"What we are experiencing is a demand shock coming from a new category of participant in the commodities futures markets: Institutional Investors. Specifically, these are Corporate and Government Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, University Endowments and other Institutional Investors. Collectively, these investors now account on average for a larger share of outstanding commodities futures contracts than any other market participant.

"These parties, who I call Index Speculators, allocate a portion of their portfolios to "investments" in the commodities futures market, and behave very differently from the traditional speculators that have always existed in this marketplace. I refer to them as "Index" Speculators because of their investing strategy: they distribute their allocation of dollars across the 25 key commodities futures according to the popular indices - the Standard & Poors - Goldman Sachs Commodity Index and the Dow Jones - AIG Commodity Index."

These index funds are composed of a number of commodities. While oil is the biggest component of the various funds, they also have exposure to grains, base metals, precious metals, and livestock. When you buy one of these funds you are buying a basket of commodities.

Why would an investor want exposure to a long-only index of commodities? Perhaps for portfolio diversification, as commodities are uncorrelated with the rest of the portfolio, or as a way to play the growing demand for commodities of all sorts from emerging markets, as a hedge against inflation, and so on. Mainline investment consultants began to suggest a few years ago to their clients that they get into the commodity market on a buy and hold basis, just like they do with stocks and bonds.

And they have done so in a very large way. As the chart below shows, at the end of 2003 there was $13 billion in commodity index funds. By March of this year, that amount had grown 20 times, to $260 billion. Masters also shows that this corresponds with the stratospheric rise in commodity prices. In many commodity futures markets, index speculators are now the single largest participant.



Is Correlation Causation?

There is no doubt that the rise in the investment in commodity indexes and the rise in prices correlate significantly. But does correlation necessarily mean that there is a direct cause and effect? Masters says yes.

As an illustration, he shows that the rise in demand for oil from China in the past five years has been 920 million barrels of oil per year. But index demand (the word Masters uses) for oil has risen by 848 million barrels, almost as much as another China .

And Masters gives us facts that are interesting. There is enough wheat in the index speculator "stockpiles" in the US to feed every many, woman, and child all the bread, pasta, and baked goods they can eat for the next two years - about 1.3 billion bushels. Yet wheat has soared in price.

As the prices of the indexes have risen, the demand for the indexes has grown. And these indexes are not price sensitive. If a billion dollars is invested in a given week, the index funds simply buy whatever allocation of futures contracts is needed to make up their index, at whatever price is offered.

For the first 52 trading days of the year, demand for commodity index funds grew by more than $55 billion, or more than $1 billion a day. And as Masters points out, "There is a crucial distinction between Traditional Speculators and Index Speculators: Traditional Speculators provide liquidity by both buying and selling futures. Index Speculators buy futures and then roll their positions by buying calendar spreads. They never sell. Therefore, they consume liquidity and provide zero benefit to the futures markets.

"Index Speculators' trading strategies amount to virtual hoarding via the commodities futures markets. Institutional Investors are buying up essential items that exist in limited quantities for the sole purpose of reaping speculative profits.” Think about it this way: If Wall Street concocted a scheme whereby investors bought large amounts of pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices in order to profit from the resulting increase in prices, making these essential items unaffordable to sick and dying people, society would be justly outraged."

What about position limits? Aren't there real limits to the amount of a physical commodity that a fund or speculator can accumulate? Masters points out that there is, but the CFTC has given investment banks a loophole, in that they can sell unlimited size positions in the OTC swap markets if they hedge the positions.

So, a hedge fund could buy $500 million worth of wheat, which would be way beyond the actual market position limit, through a swap with a Wall Street bank, without having to worry about position limits. And there is no doubt that large purchases of any commodity will drive up prices, at least in the short term.

What does Masters think Congress should do? Prohibit pension funds from commodity index buying, close the swaps loophole on speculative positions, and make the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) provide more transparency as to who is buying commodities. That would stop those nasty index speculators from driving up food and energy prices. Prices would come back down and we could all go back to driving our SUVs without having to worry about the cost.

Why is congress not doing this? Why is congress allowing the price of oil and food to surge out of control?

Because there is an election coming up. The democrats have the majority control of both house of congress but not enough of a majority to override a presidential veto. In November not only is there a presidential election coming up but also 100 congressional seats. Its all about power if the democrats can win both he presidency and enough seats in congress to override a presidential veto then they have PURE POWER. Everything, every bill passes. Congress won’t close this loophole until after the election, even if gas gets to $10 a gallon. All a politician cares about is power! Congress is quite happy to let the economy go into the toilet so they can blame Bush and the Republicans. The speculators know they have a limited amount of time to make this money and they are going to make as much as possible until congress finally acts.

Send this to everyone you know and then to your congressman, if enough people send this to their congressman demanding that they close this loophole NOW then maybe they will.

 

[SEDATE]

it is a simple game.. if people getting poor day by day.. it will be easy to control them .
the most expensive petrol in globe is in Turkey. if i am wrong , please correct me 1liter= 2 Euro .it is much more expensive than switzerland if you wanna fill up depot it cost minumum 100 euro. ..workers sallery a month is just 200 Euro ..think that 1 euro is a very very good money here . you can buy 20 bread or you can get 2 cold puplic bear
workers monthly fee ar equal 2 depot gazoline
remember that hungry man only thinks his stomach not anything around him..
our goverment is very clever. we have here high quality pure drink water. many country want to bottle them and give huge money to goverment..
our goverment find out easy way. they are really very very clever .
They collect it directly to sea and they created a huge waterfall for tourist so as to take photo behind it . in every second 10, 000 liters mix with sea water. the water taste like poor melted snow flakes and very soft taste. i hope fishes loves it
meanwhile how i love politicians you can not imagine :blackeye...
words can not be enough to explain :head
Cheers!

 

[Mr. X]

...the most expensive petrol in globe is in Turkey. if i am wrong , please correct me 1liter= 2 Euro

2.00 EUR = 1.57122 GBP

Yes that's even more than the staggering current average UK price. Although one "enterprising" petrol station put its price upto £1.99 a litre last week during the strike. It's the 70s all over again, first the clothes & music, then the politics & taxes, & now the strikes and economic collapse - back to the future?!. Same actions, same result - gee, who'd have thought it.

[Has anybody tried drilling for oil in Turkey? How far away are you from neighbouring oil fields?]

BTW The government reassured people last week before the strike that there was no need to panic and that there was enough fuel to go round. Sunday, I saw two filling stations out of petrol and others on limited product (e.g. no diesel, or only premium). So, when the govt. start talking about not panicking, you know that's the time to panic!

Just as all the Chinese are abandoning their bikes for cars, the current UK govt. announced common use bicycle schemes for Bristol, Leicester and, I think, Manchester, this morning. We've swapped transport policies with China!

 

[Mr. X]

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[trux]

Not sure if you know this speech of Lindsay Williams. Quite interesting, and put in very clear words. Although little bit long, it is worth of listening until the end.

[ame="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147&hl=en"]The Energy Non-Crisis[/ame]

 

[jay cluskey]

there is no profit in peace
no coincidence that two major economys of the world UK + USA are struggleing financialy
they are funding major military exercises around the world ,justifiably or not,who is paying for it ,you and i , and inocent people from the two countries we are occupying are suffering needlesly
do not be missled by our governments
that first night of SHOCK AND AWE how much did it cost ? tommohawk missiles cost millions
could you imagine living in iraq that night , i saw this on tv with my wife ,she wept while this was happening and said of all the children ,i did not realise my self until she said this.
price of oil is controled by supply limit supply and value and demand will climb.

 

[Farang Shao Ley]

10 $ down yesterday, still somebody wants to invest in crude-oil ? :vangry