Wednesday 23 April 2008

Could there be an oil crisis?

This report suggests that commercial consumers of fuel are already feeling the pinch from the strike at Grangemouth. With industry on this scale a single closure can always cause huge problems down the supply chain.

After 2000, the Government has built up some fuel stocks to try to help the country in a time of emergency and these may well be called upon. However, a rush for petrol by concerned consumers could well start a panic and in fact cause a petrol shortage of sorts.

This time the government could not blame the haulage industry, which paid a heavy price after the last fuel protests as the government stood back and let European operators hammer our domestic ones.

Instead no doubt the Scots in our cabinet will blame the Scots in their government's cabinet. A political solution will have to be found.

A longer-term key issue is at what price point oil causes a recession. Now the real price of oil is at $120, way above historic averages, we are at a time when a tipping point may be reached.

The Government has bailed out the banks, bailed out the 10p tax rate 'victims'...when will the bail out be for the motorists?

14 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Imagine if oil was bought and sold in Euros not $??

Fuel duty is just another example of the great difficulties the government has got itself into.

Diesel duty is nearly double the EU average of around .25p
There is Vat on top.. a tax on a tax.
High fuel duty is massively inflationary, never more so than at $120 a barrel and rising.

Bean & Badger know it and can do nothing about it as we know spending commitments far outstrip revenue.

Man in a Shed said...

There is the short term problem of the Grangemouth refinery. ( If the UK cannot operate with the unplanned outage of 1 refinery then I would suggest someone in government has very much been asleep on the job).

But the wider problem is told by the oil price.

Opec say they don't want to increase production (never stopped them before - remember all the quota cheating of the past). The truth may be that they can't increase production.

There are quite respectable technical arguments made, for example to say that Saudi Arabia's oil production will soon go into decline.

No wonder the Americans want to stay on in Iraq .... Gordon Brown's attacks on the North Sea oil industry must now look as good as his selling of gold at the bottom of the market.

CityUnslicker said...

BQ - Quite, taxes on taxes. But the extra revenue generation is huge; sickening that it is all spent already as you say.

MS- I have seen those articles too about the lack of real Saudi Reserves, but as ND said here a few days ago, with such high oil prices reserves are actually enormous. Access to them is far more difficult. I think there may be a short crisis, though I am no expert like my colleague Nick Drew.

Schadenfreude said...

Yes, when will the next bail-out be?

The government has already committed itself to £150bn of extra debt to bail out the banks and we aren't really in a crisis yet. That's £7500 of debt per household.

Seems to me that Gordon has set out his plans for the next two years. Bail out every problem and just slap the expense on the already huge national debt. All in the hope of getting re-elected. Hundreds of billions of pounds spent on Gordon's ego trip while the rest of the Labour MPs cheer him on.

Anonymous said...

A bit off the current topic, but why can’t petrol stations who are experiencing something like a rush on the pumps put their prices up by 20p or so? Surely this would reduce demand?

Mark Wadsworth said...

What Dr Ed says.

CityUnslicker said...

media pressure I guess Dr Ed. They would be accused of proiteering and then the Gov would salp more taxes on as a punishment....

Anonymous said...

They could promise to use the extra money raised to hire a hit man to take out Mugabe. Or maybe just to give it to charity/dying paraplegic babies.

I’d fill my tank.

CityUnslicker said...

more likely to fill the huge holes in the spending plans, sadly!

Bill Quango MP said...

The fuel companies need to make it clear what is going on. I mean why take the flak for HMG if you are Shell or Sainsburys?

Those big price boards on filling stations and on the pump displays too need some proper price pointing.

Diesel £.59p litre [ Before taxes]
Diesel £1.21p litre incl tax

Old BE said...

I agree with BQ

In the States they show clearly how much tax you are paying on *everything* - we should start doing that here.

monoi said...

Can someone explain why oil price is rising, when there is apparently a recession starting which would reduce demand.

Where is all this oil going ?

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