Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject: Re: Europe Fuel Shortage Reports
My local ASDA and Tesco are both at 93.9p for unleaded and Diesel , never seen that before!
Its lucky these superstores are local, if prices keep on rising at this rate I will be walking to them for my shopping! _________________ Peak Oil? crap Happens !
Joined: Apr 17, 2006 Posts: 19 Location: Wiltshire, England
Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 10:22 am Post subject: Re: North American Fuel Shortage Reports
EndOfGrowth wrote:
How long do you guys think it will be before we see shortages in the UK?
I have just paid 99.9 pence per litre for diesel fuel, the highest price I have ever actually had to pay. (About eighteen months ago fuel stations were posting prices of 104 pence per litre or so for a few days.) No queue, no shortage, no hassle.
I drive as economically as I can, so that's GBP 70 (about USD 130) for 800 miles - a month's driving. _________________ Chris P
"Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere"
- The Master of Paddington
Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject: Re: Europe Fuel Shortage Reports
At the steady rate the unleaded average has been growing the last two months (just over 0.1p per litre per day), I would say 30-40 days. However, Gordon Brown's formal appointment as PM at that very moment will weigh heavily on the export policy. He will not want to be associated with a fuel price row in his first months in office, let alone shortages. £1.00 per litre is not harmful on its own, but is certainly headline-grabbing. Therefore I expect UK exports to the US to fall back at the end of June.
How this would affect the US, I don't know, but importing their supply crisis by selling our stocks would be madness for a new prime minister to allow to happen. Especially as the DTI monthly statistics would tell the whole sordid story three months later.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3647 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 1:48 am Post subject: Re: Europe Fuel Shortage Reports
Twilight wrote:
At the steady rate the unleaded average has been growing the last two months (just over 0.1p per litre per day), I would say 30-40 days. However, Gordon Brown's formal appointment as PM at that very moment will weigh heavily on the export policy. He will not want to be associated with a fuel price row in his first months in office, let alone shortages. £1.00 per litre is not harmful on its own, but is certainly headline-grabbing. Therefore I expect UK exports to the US to fall back at the end of June.
How this would affect the US, I don't know, but importing their supply crisis by selling our stocks would be madness for a new prime minister to allow to happen. Especially as the DTI monthly statistics would tell the whole sordid story three months later.
Fascinating data thanx for the DTI link.
Turns out from that data the UK isn't in quite as bad shape as I feared, but things are still not good. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Oct 02, 2005 Posts: 284 Location: North Wales , UK
Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject: Re: Europe Fuel Shortage Reports
I dont think we are going to see anything we havent seen before here in the UK , just that everything seems to be happening sooner in the year than usual.
Every summer in the business section of the news theres generally a comment that oil , or petrol prices have risen a little while the US Summer driving season is underway .... only this time the rises seem to have come much sooner.
My local stations are at around 98p for Unleaded, this is a little higher than other places in the UK , but the offset is typical. The last time I remember it this high was late last summer after oil spiked up towards $80 and all the aggro in the middle east was brewing.
I suspect that as we approach July and August things will start to bite , I dont think we will get shortages but I think itll be a shock to the system as £1-00/litre signs become very common across the country.
No doubt this will knock on to the cost of transported goods and push inflation even higher , it may even put more pressure on the housing market as commuting to work becomes less popular due to rising driving costs.
Paul _________________ All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Joined: Oct 22, 2005 Posts: 709 Location: European Capital of Kulcha 2008
Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 4:46 am Post subject: Re: Europe Fuel Shortage Reports
As long as the consumer chain continues to believe that fuel price spikes are purely down to temporary upsets - such as regional conflict, pipeline downtimes, and so forth - then society will continue to amble along as normal. PO rebuttal centres around the repeated claim that: 'there's plenty of oil left in the ground' which is very true, but of course there inevitably comes the point where it becomes impractical or uneconomic to extract - and therefore worthless.
What the mainstream press won't be reporting, or commenting on - and therefore won't be making any sort of impact on the collective consciousness - are those nuggets of information such as Stuart Staniford's comprehensive analysis of N. Ghawar depletion rates (see: The Oil Drum); lack of new investment in refinery installations (hmmm, why? we wonder), falling oilfield discovery rates; and the toll which processing coarser crude oils is taking on existing refinery infrastructure. The investment community does take note of all these little fragments of information, and when a useful long-term picture starts emerging, it mobilises its money accordingly. When that starts to happen, the economic effects can be unpredictable and catastrophic.
At that point, the general public begins to fully comprehend the ramifications of what's actually going on, and goes ga-ga . Which is why no government is in any rush to usher in any serious transitional planning for what's to come.
In short then, people will grudgingly continue to pay whatever price is posted at the pumps, because they have absolutely no idea that this is part of the long spiral of decline in liquid fuels supply, and not just another historical blip. How long the government can stave off the day when it has to confront the issue in a consultative capacity, remains to be seen. Can't be longer than a couple of years though, especially given the serious decline in revenue to the Exchequer, from indigenous oil and gas fields markedly tailing off.
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