Alright, i'm on the road all day and every day, and i'm certain that traffic volume's are down, probably not in leafy surrey, but in the midlands and North Wales and the like.
The school run doesn't seem as bad as usual.
My workmates have noticed the same, and wondered if you high miler BR's have too, also i think people that are driving their own cars (guessing by the type of cars) more slowly, presumably in effort to reduce fuel use.
What concerns me, if we reduce our fuel use, will the alleged government increase the tax on fuel even more to make up the shortfall?
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No they will just implement the daft 'lights on' regulation and increase fuel consumption.
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Not sure if I've thought about it too deeply yet GB but for some reasons which are probably a combination of of heightened awareness of fuel availability, price and parking charges. A realisation that my wife has not in fact simultaneously shrunk all my clothes during the Winter and some sporadic patches of brighter weather, I have actually used my bike a bit more in the past couple of weeks for short trip errands. Journeys that I would probably previously have used the car for without thinking. Quite enjoyed it funnily enough. If traffic volumes do seem lighter, what I can tell you is that there have definately been far fewer trips made by shoppers to shoe shops year on year. Unsustainably bad in fact in an industry where the margins are already wafer thin. Goodness knows what it must be like trying to sell cars right now.
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www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/eco/traducao-DieOff.pdf )
Oof...
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new discoveries of oil are now remote its running out, and its going to run out at a pace that will surprise as the chinese and indian continent demand for oil is growing amazingly. plus the americans show no real sign of trying to consume less.
So what will they say to the kids in 200 years time, like -well they discovered oil and how to use it in cars etc and within 180 years it had all gone on silly trips to the supermarkets etc and when they were too lazy to walk.
meanwhile we andeveryone else want roads widened so we can use more cars to get to places quicker and grow car travel even more ?, would you believe and more air travel.
talk about lunatics running the asylum........
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We're a bit stuck where we are, aren't we?
It's not just using the car to go to the supermarket. The supermarket has been put where you need a car to get to. Buses and tubes are quite expensive. No-one wants to be on public transport late at night. Lots of schools are rubbish, so people have to ferry their children all over the place if catchment areas allow.
We've made a model for the planet in the US and Western Europe. Some people say that what finished communism was being able to see on satellite TV what capitalism had to offer. Cars. Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Emily Maitlis on Newsnight.
And countries such as India and China will follow in our footsteps as the former Soviet Union has.
I dunno. Slowing down a bit on the way to work does seem rather like asterisking in the wind.
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If we give up cars, satellite TV, and Ben & Jerry's, can we keep Emily Maitlis? I'm up for it, for the public good of course.
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It seems the world is finally waking up to the fact that oil & gas are a finite resources. The days of running around burning oil products in vehicles without a care for the future reserves are now upon us. Every country in the world will need to shift/change its usage of oil and gas to other forms of energy as supplies of oil/gas continue to be depleted. The shift is most likely going to be one of the most fundamental changes to peoples lives that any of us have ever experienced.
In the meantime each of us needs to do our bit and reduce our consumption of oil/gas as much as possible, not just because of cost but because we need to ensure future generations actually have energy sources for their needs.
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Two things.
Was in Calais yesterday and as on previous trips filled up on diesel at Carrefour at Mivoix.
As it happened the last time I did was in November and I know what I paid .
It was a fraction over a euro a litre then, and 1.29 yesterday. I looked at euro-only prices so as to remove the currency movement .
Looks like an increase over around 27% .
At least as bad as here but here we seem to think ( if you listen to phone-ins) it's all in some way the fault of the government.
Also re the dollar .Oil producers are paid in dollars and the weakness in the dollar is one of the reasons prices have gone up. If the dollar strengthens, their income improves , so they have the scope to cut prices , not increase them ( although they may just look at the opportunity and hold or increase them anyway).
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"Buses and tubes are quite expensive. "
What are buses and tubes. We don't have them where I live. (Well, one bus an hour. The bus stop is about 2 miles away and it only goes to one destination)
The Government could help the citizens of this country (who they are supposed to represent) and use the windfall they're currently receiving to reduce the exorbitant tax they levee on fuel.
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What are buses and tubes. We don't have them where I live. (Well one bus an hour. The bus stop is about 2 miles away and it only goes to one destination)
It's not the government's fault that you have chosen to be dependent on your car, is it? Just as it's not the government's fault that the road haulage industry has a business model based on cheap oil. We're arriving at the 'Doh!' moment, if you ask me.
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It's the Governments fault that they tax and waste to the extent they do. (And no..I didn't vote for them)
And the Government keep saying that the extortionate tax is an 'encouragement' to use public transport. Well, I've lived here long before the Global Warming scam became the latest fad. They didn't provide viable public transport then and they're making no attempt to do so now.
It's a case of we'll kick you in the teeth and then tell you it's your own fault.
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It does rather give pause to the thought that if there were a business called "UK PLC", how many current, or indeed past senior politicians would be regarded as having the appropriate knowledge, experience, integrity and foresight to run it? Very few I would say.
Edited by shoespy on 30/04/2008 at 11:20
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Shoespy, is anyone qualified?
Name me a business leader anywhere on earth who is running a company with 60 million employees and a turnover of 2 trillion pounds. It seems to me only senior politicians have that kind of experience.
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It goes back a long way and global warming has nothing to do with it. In the 1960s we ripped out public transport because the car was 'modern' and trains and trams were 'nineteenth-century'. In the 1980s we all but finished off the subsidised bus network. We chose to ignore alternatives to the car so they went away and we built an economy on the assumption that oil would stay cheap. For the last 40 years the car has become progressively cheaper as a mode of transport so we've moved further from our places of work, making bus routes impossible to manage outside of cities. We built out of town shopping centres and business parks with inadequate public transport links and goods distribution hubs with no railway lines nearby. We chose this, collectively and individually, I'm afraid, because it was cheap. Governments of all hues have participated in it, on our behalf, and we've gone along with it because it suited us. We didn't plan ahead and now we either have to change our behaviour or get used to our lifestyle costing more.
I wonder what this will do to rural commuter belt house prices. I certainly wouldn't buy a house with no railway or bus route nearby.
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Not knowing what your personal circumstances are but perhaps you could try cycling at least on some of your journeys?
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I feel it is a problem we have to take collective responsibility for. We started buying cars and then the world changed so that we became dependent on them. Now that situation needs to change again, therefore, both us as consumers and them as the government will need to act to re-balance the situation.
We don't have much control over the government, but we can choose to leave the car at home sometimes and maybe try to give companies our money that don't require us to drive numerous miles to reach them. We also need to try and seek out employment closer to home. Easy to say, harder to do, I know. But that is what needs to happen, and it will happen over many years. Just like it took many years for us to become so dependent on having a car.
Edited by TheOilBurner on 30/04/2008 at 11:16
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I looked again at the OPEC stuff late last night.
The spokesman was saying that oil reserves were ok; that there should be no shortages; that the increase in prices is due to speculation in the markets.
If that's true we need to get a grip. We've seen the results of the sub-prime mess which was people enriching themselves. We saw someone try to drive down the price of HBOS shares a few weeks ago by spreading a damaging rumour. I don't know how we get a grip, I'm afraid. Be interesting to see what they do in the US. Where we administer a gentlemanly ticking-off, they're inclined to bang people up.
Thinking back, we've been aware that we would face a global problem on oil for years. Since the 60's people have been concerned about pollution. We've done some small, good things like taking CFC's out of refrigerants and trying to re-cycle old fridges safely, but on the larger scale I doubt we'll act until we're forced to.
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$200/barrel by the end of the year is a widely held opinion. Forbes magazine predicted the same last Wednesday.
Which means that there is a huge opportunity for the "investors" [gamblers?] among you to double your money by buying the futures oil contracts.
www.advfn.com/p.php?pid=commodities_contracts&cb=1...N
Prices below are taken at 09.25 BST today.
You can buy Brent sweet contracts ending December 2008 at $110
Another 12 months beyond:
You can buy Brent Sweet contracts ending December 2009 at $107
Another 6 months beyond:
You can buy Brent sweet contracts ending June 2010 at $108
If you are clever, you can combine these oil futures with the $/£ futures to improve your profits.
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Oil prices seem to be falling back. In the US demand at the pump is falling off and there is a cautious expectation that pump prices will (at some point) fall also.
Interesting to see that a fight broke out in the Japanese parliament yesterday when the opposition tried to prevent a vote on the re-institution of a 12p tax on petrol.
Come on, Cameron!
Edited by Optimist on 01/05/2008 at 10:54
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Interesting that apparently there's no shortage of oil at all, and that the high price is entirely driven by speculators on futures exchanges.
Neither OPEC nor BP can understand why they'd be betting this way - so I'm led to believe. It therefore seems quite possible that it may fall sharply at some point - like house prices, it probably driven by sentiment as much as anything. If/when that changes, the price could even plummet.
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Interesting that apparently there's no shortage of oil at all and that the high price is entirely driven by speculators on futures exchanges.
That's what the media say, but then this is the same media who seem unable (at least at first) to grasp the 2008 Budget VED changes until it was spelled out for them. I mean if 2nd rate hacks like me can spot it and understand it in the official budget document, within minutes of it being published, you'd expect journalists to pick up on it, no?
If not, then why take anything they have to say on face value? Speculators or the economics of supply and demand?
The problem we have in the West is that if there is a shortage of supply, we don't see it. We outbid the poor countries, so they do without and we just pay more for our fuel. If you read the news very carefully, you will indeed find stories of 3rd world countries suffering fuel shortages. Not proof, but very interesting all the same.
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The thing people don't mention is the fact that the Saudi Riyal (as they are the biggest producers) is pegged to the US Dollar. The Dollar has fallen against the Euro by 23.5% over the past two years, and by that token the Saudis are "making" less money.
Compared to other currencies over the same 2 year period:
China, Saudi Riyal has fallen 15%
Japan, fallen by 9.5%
Australia, fallen by 23.2%
India, fallen by 11.2%
etc
etc
The easy way to make that money back, is to restrict production and force up oil prices.
There is word that the Saudi's want to unpeg themselves from the Dollar but I would imagine that the US would not be too keen on that.
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The thing people don't mention is the fact that the Saudi Riyal (as they are the biggest producers) is pegged to the US Dollar.
Most goods traded internationally are priced in US Dollars. So that means effect on Saudis is nuetral. Goods from European suppliers priced in Euros will cost the Saudi's a little bit more, but Oil has gone from $25 to $100 in a very short space of time. So Saudis income for exports has quadrupled while expenditure for their same imports may have gone up 10 to 20% in the same time frame .
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Ed said:"Neither OPEC nor BP can understand why they'd be betting this way - so I'm led to believe."
Hmm.. I have a one word reply to that incapable of being used here.
BP deal in futures contracts: they have a VERY big trading department dealing in oil. I guess they were long from around $100.. Of course they do not mention it.
As for OPEC, they're hardly likely to say "we like the price as it is and we ain't producing more to help it falll " - although that is their policy... and most are bust spending the cash profits on anything else but oil...
"Disengenuous" is another one word description of their attitude.
Make no mistake: it is in no producer's interst for prices to fall. When oil was $10 they all nearly had to borrow money to survive.
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Ahhh, $10/bbl. The heady days of 1998. At the time I worked for Halliburton, as a service hand in the North Sea,. They cut my day rate from £37 a day to £31. Profits come first, second and last with oil companies and they want the stuff out the ground now, today, not tomorrow or next week.
Which has got me thinking, I can't remember now why the oil price went so low? Off to an online encyclopaedia to discover a reason.
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The oil price went to $10 as a result of the OPEC inspired price rise in the 1970s. Lots of exploration : big new fields discovered and exploited: Mexico, Algeria, Argentina etc etc. Output raised a lot. Then the LTCM crash and most ME currencies crashed and recession and oil demand fell.
AND Saudi Arabia hated Iran BIG style and helped by pumping more to bankrupt Iran. (It did not work of course). Backed by the US who hated Iran...after Fall of the Shah and the Jimmy Carter failed helicopter rescue of US prisoners etc...
This time the US keeps asking the Saudis to pump more... they claim they can .. but don't.
Potted history. Read the Seven Sisters for earlier Background information.
Edited by madf on 01/05/2008 at 17:02
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The oil price went to $10 as a result of the OPEC
This interview with the BP CEO (now ex-CEO) from nearly 2 years ago (June 2006) is very pertinent . It also discusses "peak oil theory", Iran, Canada, etc.
www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,421709...l
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19777-2004...l
Some snipets from
... BP's chief executive, .... thinks oil prices will remain around $30 a barrel in the "medium term," roughly three to five years.
But oil companies are investing ... are planning investments for oil costs in the $20 to $25 range.
"We plan our investments on historical oil price averages," said spokeswoman Jan Sieving. "Over the last 10 years it's been $25."
... former chief executive of oil company Atlantic Richfield Co., which merged with BP in 2000, said oil price forecasts are notoriously inaccurate ..... , a year ago many analysts predicted oil would cost less than $30 a barrel this quarter.
BP CEO said "I don't think that anyone would go and bet their economics on anything like $50 oil," he said. "I don't think we have a ghost of a notion what oil is going to be in 10 years. . . .."
Fareed Mohamedi, chief economist for consulting firm PFC Energy in Washington, said that if oil companies raised the bar for new projects to $35 a barrel, many more would become viable. ..... "We need to invest in capacity or prices would go to $100 a barrel," he said.
...
Edited by jbif on 01/05/2008 at 17:27
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>Jbif
"BP's chief executive, .... thinks oil prices will remain around $30 a barrel in the "medium term," roughly three to five years."
I recall these statements at the time. I follow oil shares. It was a totally POLITICAL speech - designed imo to head off any prospect of extra taxes. After all, if he stated" oil is going to go to $100 and we're going to make pots of money, pay our shareholders huge dividends and buy back our own shares " = ALL of which BP have done - the pressure politically (remember we have a Labour Gov't who spends about 5% more than its revenues !) to impose a windfall tax when petrol prices were soaring - would have been immense.
I doubt if anyone in the industry took any notice or believed it.
BUT also remembr this followed a time when oil was $10 per barrel and most oil companies had stopped hiring, slashed all non essential spending, and cut exploration to save money.
$10 per barrel was only for a few months and was unsustainable.
Imo We'll not see $200 - unless there is a US strike on Iran this year (50% chance imo) - until the economic slowdown ends in about 2011.. and maybe even not then.
Of course, if doubts about Saudi capacity are true, that could push up prices, but stopping conflicts in major producers like Nigeria and Iraq (and lots of investment) could increase supplies by 2012 by 5% worldwide.
Iraq has to be the big unknown. IF it was stable and the huge investment $ billions started soon , it could treble output in 10 years. But until peace and a law change on oil licenses, it's questionable.
Forecasting the future is difficult.:-)
Edited by madf on 01/05/2008 at 17:52
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Most goods traded internationally are priced in US Dollars. So that means effect on Saudis is nuetral. Goods from European suppliers priced in Euros will cost the Saudi's a little bit more but Oil has gone from $25 to $100 in a very short space of time. So Saudis income for exports has quadrupled while expenditure for their same imports may have gone up 10 to 20% in the same time frame .
I'm not doubting that Saudi is making a lot more money with the price of oil but they could be making even more if they weren't pegged to the USD. See www.saudi-us-relations.org/articles/2007/ioi/07090...l which explains a bit more stating that the Riyal could be over valued by up to 20%, so perhaps reports of wanting to end the pegging might not be true. But if they did revalue, I would presume that there would be upward pressure on oil prices to cover this (or maybe not)
As for most goods being traded in USD that is not true. There is a table on the above link which states that only 15% of Saudi imports were in USD. (Do you think that we sell them weaponry in USD or GBP?)
Edited by rogue-trooper on 01/05/2008 at 17:22
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