There are a number of reasons why the big companies got out of refining. Firstly, they earn on average between 20-25% return on capital employed in oil exploration activities, but even in good times the return on refining is only around 8%. Secondly, and the main reason why they exited, is simply because there is massive overcapacity in the industry and overcapacity in a depressed market spells huge problems. A refinery obviously has huge fixed costs and even when it is not producing much it still carries significant costs such as maintenance and safety and regulatory compliance, without even taking into account the payroll and other infrastructure. If the market overcapacity means you are going to be operating at 60% of the plant's capacity for the foreseeable future then it doesn't take a genius to work out that the economics don't stack up - especially when new refineries are opening in China and India which don't have the same regulatory burdens.

We should get ourselves a nice friendly secular dictator with an army background, arm him to the teeth and then get him to attack Iran...


















on second thoughts we tried that and then decided to dump him.

It's all very well saying but what if you have no option but to drive?

Then you'll be worse off.

then but it back when they go bust,

BP will come out of this on a right winner

Prices will go through the roof and then the sky will fall in.



I'm sure if I could be arrissed I could make a joke out of that.

People are using public transport more often (hence crowded trains despite there being more trains), cycling is booming, supermarkets are reporting that they are getting lower footfall at out-of-town supermarkets (i.e. people are going less often, spending less overall but buying more per visit), Tesco are cutting back on building out-of-town (not pulling-out of it but they see the future in putting more shops nearer to where the shoppers are), people are generally less keen on just jumping into the car and fuel consumption is more often seen as a vital statistic when buying a car.

Some behaviour is changing, gradually.

Now you're just trying to cheer Dally up!

I believe about 75% is tax,no doubt someone will put me right.When I was delivering to petrol stations the garage itself made about 1 pence per litre.More profit was made in the shop,believe it or not.

A penny, one penny or, if you must, one "P".
Not 1 pence.
Pence is plural.

The general word is that a typical averagely busy urban garage makes around 3p a litre. I believe they actually make more, in many cases, certainly out of town ones do as they charge clearly a few pence at least more than you would pay in a city.

I fill up at Morrisons and they seem to have queues at the pumps most of the time. Getting out my fag packet, 16 pumps selling (say) 50 litres every 5 minutes for 16 hours.

Roughly 150,000 litres, allowing 8 hours of zero sales (though its open 24/7)

1p - 3p means £1500 - £4500 profit a day.

Despite the back of a fag packet calculation, there's clearly money to be made. Last year Shell made £1.6m per HOUR. Granted sales of the stuff don't make up the majority of that but the fact they won't actually say how much they make from fuels sales tells its own story doesn't it?

When I see a boarded up petrol station I reckon that the problem is most likely to be the prohibitive permanent cost, given the hike in fuel prices, of the purchase price of the petrol station, and the buying in cost of your stock ie the fuel in your storage tanks.

I have just googled "petrol stations for sale" and looked at only the top of the first page of results, and found "MID GLAMORGAN- SUBSTANTIAL PETROL FORECOURT for sale - £2,000,000".
This does not sound like people think they're a bad investment, and that's before you even consider the huge amounts of money they must make on selling stuff from their inevitable and well stocked shops.

Personally I hope they tripple the cost of petrol, price more people off the road (especially the school runs) and let me drive on quieter streets.

Well done, unfortunately, not everyone is as rich as you.

Correct.

Electric cars are expensive, and don't give you (yet) the range that a petrol or diesel car will. Only when the price of these start to come down, will the public consider them as being a real alternative.

Similarly, as long as public transport is inefficient, dirty, expensive and not particularly convenient (in other words, the rest of the country needs to catch up to London), then again, people will continue to use their cars.

Its a sad situation, and one which needs a complete, from the bottom upwards, rethink, and a good 10 years to implement.

Not really. The oil companies will no doubt have sold the refineries for a lovely amount of cash, and will be able to buy them back again for next to nothing if the operators keep going out of business.

To clarify the situation with the Essex depot, the following was typed by a driver at the depot, and posted onto a friend's Facebook page;


P&O have bought the main shell site in partnership with a kuate company and they are building a mega large container terminal, it will be the biggest in europe so if you put 2 & 2 together the mobil oil refinery is right in the way thats why the government sold the site to a swedish company a few years back, so they dont take the flac when it closes to make way for the container terminal, and also thats why theres so much work being done at saddlers farm so they link the roads up with the north via the A12 and the A14, there now you know love always XXXXXXX

If you're at a petrol station feel free. Smoke one, even...

You are all worrying about nothing. As we have a Conservative government they will prioritise the motorist and not be sucked into the stupid lobbying of the tree huggers to price the hard working motorist off the road. Read this about their fuel duty stabiliser that will keep prices down: conservativehome.blogs.com/theto ... hit-a.html If there is war in Iran and oil prices go up I'm sure George Osborne will ensure that in a time like this when consumers need every penny they've got, the prices at the pump will be kept stable.

You are all worrying about nothing. As we have a Conservative government they will prioritise the motorist and not be sucked into the stupid lobbying of the tree huggers to price the hard working motorist off the road. Read this about their fuel duty stabiliser that will keep prices down: conservativehome.blogs.com/theto ... hit-a.html If there is war in Iran and oil prices go up I'm sure George Osborne will ensure that in a time like this when consumers need every penny they've got, the prices at the pump will be kept stable.

I stand corrected in this corner ,wearing a pointed hat.

Just because motor companies produce fully or semi-electric cars this doesn't necessarily mean they want them to be successful. Take the now infamous case of General Motors' EV1 - a vehicle which despite being a remarkable technical (top speed upwards of 80mph, 160 mile range etc.), aesthetic (a highly desirable two-seat coupe) and PR achievement was cynically sabotaged by its manufacturer.

For the past decade energy conscious governments about the globe have repeatedly stumped up huge subsidies and inducements to stimulate the electric car market. GM were quite happy to effectively write-off a fraction of their R&D budget to create prototypes and limited production runs of vehicles if it meant getting their hands on government money. Once safely deposited in the bank they could then announce plans to move into more "exciting" technologies (such as hydrogen fuel-cell), kill off the likes of the EV1 (satisfied buyers were more than a touch annoyed to discover GM reserved the right to recall the EV1 at any time it pleased) and pursue the next round of lavish subsidies.

The EV1 pretty much proved the electric car was - with sufficient corporate commitment - not just a viable product but a genuine competitor for diesel/petrol engine vehicles two or perhaps three decades ago.

That said, even if we moved away from the internal combustion engine to electric or the mythical hydrogen fuel cell it still wouldn't address the fundamental problem of building the [irest[/i of the car in a resource-diminished future.

Bear in mind that 'electric' cars are in effect burning fossil fuels in exactly the same proportion as the overall electricity network. In most countries, 'electric' cars are effectively powered by coal, and hardly cleaner than petrol when indirect emissions are considered. In Australia the cost of electricity is going to continue rising significantlhy, and its quite possible that the running costs of electric cars will be similar to petrol.

As for medium- to long-term oil prices, they will largely be driven by the marginal cost of production of shale oil and similar. Crude prices are already in the region where such previously unattractive methods of production are becoming economic.

There are plenty of ways to generate electricity, other than by burning fossil fuels or nuclear. The relatively mature but still-developing technologies of PV cells and wind in combination with the immature technologies of wave, biomass and anaerobic digestion, could all relieve pressure on fossil fuels. Unfortunately they need commitment from governments and the buy-in of big business and if "the market" doesn't see what it considers an acceptable RoI, they will struggle to reach maturity.

Harnassing all the bullsh*t on this sorum would be a good start.

Not really, the digestive system of cattle works as a pretty effective AD plant alone.

GM has previous in such duplicitous activities, not least being the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracyGeneral Motors Streetcar Conspracy[/url