Cheaper Petrol and Diesel

A question about : Cheaper Petrol and Diesel

A friend sent me this idea, i think if enough people got involved it would work. Here goes

We are now at 89p a litre and the prices need to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. A friend offered this idea.

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 at 87p -90p, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace 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! And 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 whimp 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 or tell 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, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it... .. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again,all You have to do is send or tell this to 10 people. That's all.(and not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this message out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8
days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! 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 forward this message , and buy your petrol at Shell, Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Jet etc. i.e. boycott BP and Esso.

Best answers:

• Ive sent this on....sounds pretty good to me, especially if enough people stick to it. I Will
• There are a good many reasons why this isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference. Indeed, the cynic in me would point out that this looks like a deliberate e-mail chain letter virus rather than a workable scheme.
  Firstly, petrol retailers have paper thin margins - most of the cost of petrol seen by the consumer is tax. Most of them are in fact acting effectively as poorly remunerated tax revenue gatherers for the government and their prices are heavily constrained by the price they pay to their suppliers for petrol, which is in turn conditioned by the price the refiners pay for crude. Except in very special circumstances - supermarket loss leaders as an example - reducing prices by even a few pence would mean they would operate at a loss.
  Boycotting Esso and Shell garages would no doubt have some effect on the companies if everyone could be persuaded to do it. But virtually no-one will bother: even when people have a perfectly valid reason not to use these retailers (price relative to supermarkets), they don't switch. And even if a sizeable number participated in a boycott, the effect would just be to close down some forecourts and lose people their jobs.
  And Esso and Shell would not be particularly bothered at this, because petrol retail is not particularly profitable, and they are the companies supplying petrol to everyone else and producing crude oil for the refiners. At a time when raw crude prices are high, the producers will make money hand over fist anyway.
  The big problems with oil prices are the instability in the Middle East, and the massive increase in consumption from China. Consumer pressure will have absolutely zero effect on changing the situation.
  The best way of reducing the cost of the petrol you use is to drive slower (about a 10% improvement with little effort) and buy a car with an efficient smaller engine. This will also reduce emissions of CO2.
• Nice one Lee, I have passed it on, now lets see the Great British public vote with their feet
• Before clogging the entire e-mail system with chain letters, however well meant, please refer to:
  https://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/exxon.html
  https://www.snopes.com/politics/business/nogas.asp