Comments on: Fuel for Thought http://www.grumblingtummy.com/archives/2007/11/15/fuel-for-thought/ Grumbling mumblings of a professional whinger! Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:30:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Wonko the Sane http://www.grumblingtummy.com/archives/2007/11/15/fuel-for-thought/comment-page-1/#comment-6031 Wonko the Sane Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:52:13 +0000 http://www.grumblingtummy.com/archives/2007/11/15/fuel-for-thought/#comment-6031 The only problem with this idea is that pretty much all the petrol sold in Scotland comes from BP's refinary at Grangemouth. So, if I buy my petrol from my local Sainsbury's then BP get some of that money. In fact, if you break it down petrol costs at the pump include 50p fuel duty and VAT (which is calculated AFTER adding the fuel duty). So, at the current £1 per litre that is 36p (for the actual fuel), 50p for the fuel duty and 14p for the VAT. So, if you want the price to come down to 69p that means the petrol companies reducing their part to 9p per litre (remember VAT is a percentage of cost while fuel duty is fixed per litre). Finally, petrol companies only make about 1% of their profits from petrol pumps. So boycotting them won't really make them pressurise the government as they'll get the money from selling the petrol to retailers that aren't being boycotted. The only problem with this idea is that pretty much all the petrol sold in Scotland comes from BP’s refinary at Grangemouth. So, if I buy my petrol from my local Sainsbury’s then BP get some of that money.

In fact, if you break it down petrol costs at the pump include 50p fuel duty and VAT (which is calculated AFTER adding the fuel duty). So, at the current £1 per litre that is 36p (for the actual fuel), 50p for the fuel duty and 14p for the VAT.

So, if you want the price to come down to 69p that means the petrol companies reducing their part to 9p per litre (remember VAT is a percentage of cost while fuel duty is fixed per litre).

Finally, petrol companies only make about 1% of their profits from petrol pumps. So boycotting them won’t really make them pressurise the government as they’ll get the money from selling the petrol to retailers that aren’t being boycotted.

]]>