Idea to reduce fuel prices

[capelli]

Ok, this is not my idea, but one that I actually found on a group on facebook.com. I could give a link to the group but you would need to have an account to view it. It's a pretty simple idea though so I'll just give you the details. The idea that somebody has come up with is one to reduce petrol(gas) prices in the uk but could be adopted in any country.

The basic idea is to boycott one fuel provider but still purchase fuel from everywhere else. So say here in the UK we had a huge boycott of BP over a long period but car owners still used the other available providers to fuel their car. This would lead to large profit drops at BP and so would incur them to reduce their prices. At an acceptably low price those boycotting BP would again buy fuel there, causing the other providers to reduce their own prices. This in theory should bring down the cost of fuel.

What do you think? Has this been tried anywhere before? Has it had any affect? Of course this would need a very large number of participants but even them I'm a little skeptical that it would actually work.

There is also the suggestion that the group created, which does suggest targetting BP and Esso, is actually a ploy from the supermarkets(or other fuel providers) to increase their profits.

[Asguard]

MOD HAT:cappelli, please give credit to the author if its not your own idea (if you need to have an account use the offline source method)

Please read this:http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=79032

[hypewaders]

Shitopedia: Fuel Boycotts

[dixonmassey]

How can you boycott BP, Chevron, Texaco (what else?), if those are major players. Boycotting BP (meaning absolute boycott) may mean really rough times (not speaking of shortage related super price hikes).

[capelli]

Ok, this is the actual facebook.com link: facebook.com/group.php?gid=7910077859, an account with facebook will be needed to view it. The author is a guy called Alex Howe and here is the exact quote from that page:

Take the time to at least read this, then, see what you think and pass it on if you agree with it.
We are hitting 106.9 p a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1.10 a litre.
This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain
day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil
companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more
of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can
really work.
Please read it and join in!
Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned
us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take
aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market
place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each
day, we consumers need to take
action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come
down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their
Petrol! We can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:
For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two
biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.
If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to
reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other
companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need
to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's
really simple to do!!
Now, don't wimp out on me at this point... keep reading and I'll
explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!
I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it
to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to
at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, until we reach around THREE MILLION consumers!
Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's
all.(and not buy at ESSO/BP)

Invite ten more people to this group within one day of joining, all 3 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next
8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.
PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE
RANGE
It's easy to make this happen. Just invite your friends, and buy
your petrol at Asda,Tesco, Morrisons Jet etc.
i.e. boycott BP, Shell and Esso (and Sainsburys)

[capelli]

Shitopedia: Fuel Boycotts

This isn't the same thing. In this case one provider is boycotted or even two. This puts pressure on that(or those) provider(s) but still, the comsumer can still go about using fuel from other providers with little disruption to their life or their driving.

[capelli]

How can you boycott BP, Chevron, Texaco (what else?), if those are major players. Boycotting BP (meaning absolute boycott) may mean really rough times (not speaking of shortage related super price hikes).

If you boycott one of them you can still use the other two. That would be in general quite easy to manage wouldn't it. Are you saying that the other remaining providers(say Chevron and Texaco) would just increase prices even more?

[kmguru]

If you boycott one of them you can still use the other two. That would be in general quite easy to manage wouldn't it. Are you saying that the other remaining providers(say Chevron and Texaco) would just increase prices even more?

If I am the owner of a gas station, and find out that I am running out of gas before the night is out, I too will increase the gas price. In fact that is what happened locally. This Indian gas station started selling gas at 10 cents below the next door. So people started going to him. After two years, he raised his price to only 2 cents below the neighbor. The place is still full as gas prices went up....

[capelli]

If I am the owner of a gas station, and find out that I am running out of gas before the night is out, I too will increase the gas price. In fact that is what happened locally. This Indian gas station started selling gas at 10 cents below the next door. So people started going to him. After two years, he raised his price to only 2 cents below the neighbor. The place is still full as gas prices went up....

Yeah I guess it all depends on the amount of gas the other gas stations have.

[spidergoat]

This is as dumb as a chain letter.

[Cardin]

What if you in the UK and us in the US (sorry) got together in one common place and boycotted the same company.. otherwise it would just work itself out. If everyone in the UK got together and boycotted BP, and the US boycotted Shell. Then Shell's profit would rise in the UK and BP's would in the US.

[spidergoat]

Nothing would happen, sorry. Get a Prius, ride a bike, grow a garden. Fuel is a diminishing commodity.

[capelli]

Nothing would happen, sorry. Get a Prius, ride a bike, grow a garden. Fuel is a diminishing commodity.

How does fuel being a dimishing commodity have any significance? It probably does but I'm not sure I see why. If BP are selling no fuel in the UK then what do they do? Would they not drop their prices in the UK? Surely they aren't going to sit around waiting for their competitors to run out of fuel to sell? I'm not sure the idea would work but I'm not sure I understand where you see the problem being.

For example, if 3 people(Mr A, Mr B, Mr C) sell lemonade at the same price,say $2. Now everybody purchasing lemonade agree they will not purchase from Mr A until his price is $1.50. Now Mr B and Mr C are very happy with this as they get all of Mr A's business. Now Mr A sits around making a loss and so eventually choses to reduce to $1.50. Now everyone buys from Mr A and so Mr B and Mr C must compete. Of course this all depends on how cheap they can sell for. Would this not work out at least in this situation?

Sure oil is limited but do the other providers really have so little fuel that they couldn't all comfortably cope with one provider disappearing?

[krokah]

It's to bad that we couldn't do like the old blue laws of the south. Gas to purchased only on certain days depending on where you live in the states. Even if you filled up on gas days it would make one "second think" a lot of little road trips on and between gas days. Overall the demand should decrease for gas and with this little push maybe public transportation would benifit.

[Xelios]

BP and other oil producers don't set the price, the market does. The market meaning a bunch of rich investors and 'market analysts' who are often wrong anyway. The price didn't skyrocket because of supply shortages as a result of the Iraq war, it skyrocketed because the Iraq war created fear of a shortage. And fears of whatever else was in the headlines the past few years that may or may not have some impact on oil.

It has nothing to do with supply and demand. Demand has been steadily growing over the past few decades, but it didn't suddenly jump in the last 5 years. Supply has been growing too, and it didn't suddenly shrink in the last 5 years. It's all market speculation on Wall Street.

[capelli]

Yeah I do see that the Market basically sets the price. However, wouldn't a huge loss of profit at BP due to a large boycott of the specific company affect the market price? Especially since at the same time there would be no problem for any other fuel provider.

[Xelios]

Yeah I do see that the Market basically sets the price. However, wouldn't a huge loss of profit at BP due to a large boycott of the specific company affect the market price? Especially since at the same time there would be no problem for any other fuel provider.

It could have the opposite effect, make the situation more "unstable" which makes investors wet their pants. Which in turn would drive up the price even more.

[capelli]

Yeah I see that that is possible. I think that is likely the whole problem, that it would just lead to other providers having to increase prices due to fears in the market or added demand. I'm not sure it definitely would have negative effects but I assume it cannot work as there would surely have been a similar idea before.

[idiot0boy]

The problem we have with fuel in the UK is the amount of tax our gov. takes off the top. Thats why our Petrol cost twice what it does in the USA.

[capelli]

The problem we have with fuel in the UK is the amount of tax our gov. takes off the top. Thats why our Petrol cost twice what it does in the USA.

Yeah, I know, the tax is extremely high, which does pay for things that aren't paid for by tax in the US, like our healthcare system, but there is a suggestion that the fuel companies are making a huge profit on the amount they charge. Profits have increased due to increase in oil prices at BP http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4245509.stm so I think that is where the anger in the price comes.

Anyway, I was just wondering whether this idea would actually work if it was actually done in any way, whether it is fuel prices or not. I thought someone may have heard of the idea before and could point out the errors in its assumptions(and I can't see why oil being a diminishing commodity could be one of these).