Jump to content

Cost of living


Recommended Posts

Is the price of fuel (petrol & diesel) rising as much and as fast in France as it is here in the UK?  I`m in the fortunate position not to have to fill up every week but at the pumps this morning the price of diesel has gone up 4p in the last 3 weeks bringing it to £1.24 per litre with petrol 10p cheaper. I know that the world price of oil is rising but the cynic in me, seeing the price rise by 1p per week for the last six months or so, can`nt help but think that someone somewhere is making a killing out of joe public. 

P.S. I was so busy effing and blinding to myself about the cost whilst filling the car up that I managed to fill it up with petrol,(it`s a diesel car!!) so the 10p per litre I saved on petrol has cost me best part of £350 to get back on the road! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They had a news item on the French lunchtime news comparing petrol prices in Rome, Paris, London and Berlin.

For a litre of SP95:

Italy:         €1.39     (taxes 55.8%)

UK:         €1.40         (taxes 67%)

France:     €1.40     (taxes 59.6%)

Germany:     €1.44     (taxes 61.3%)

See it here (13h03mn58s): http://jt.france2.fr/13h/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's even scarier when you recall that at the back end of 2007 diesel was still under €1 and a £1 bought you €1.50, the equivalent of £0.66/lt.

Now, @ €1.35 and with £1 worth only €1.25, for those reliant on an income converted from £ (i.e. most of us), that's a real term hike of around 65% [:-))]

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]Given that a barrel of crude yields more diesel than petrol, hence diesel having lower refining costs per litre, why is diesel in UK more expensive at the pump than petrol?[/quote]

Funny that...!

They're saying just the opposite here to explain the higher cost of diesel: http://jt.france2.fr/13h/   (13h02)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny that..... Someone is conning us.

There are different types of "cracking" processes used in oil refining. In the USA they use Catalytic cracking which produces more petrol than diesel from a barrel of crude. In the rest of the World, particularly Europe "Hydrocracking" is the preferred refinery method, this produces more diesel per barrel than petrol. Hence my statement that refined costs per diesel litre are lower is true. It doesn't matter how many TV interviewers try to say different, the facts are there.

edit.  If the hydrocracking did not result in lower diesel "raw" costs, how come diesel fuel is cheaper than petrol in most countries of the World, bar UK and (I think) Sweden. For some reason it is also much more expensive than petrol here in the UAE but that is not down to refining costs but more to "socio-political" factors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I won't argue the processes however if a barrel of crude costs $125 to buy then that cost has to be recouped, plus profit of course.

Would it not therefore follow that, even if Hydrocracking does produce more diesel per barrel, that is not neccessarily a reason for it to cost less. The reverse could in fact be argued that as it represents a greater proportion of the initial $125 it should cost more !

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]Given that a barrel of crude yields more diesel than petrol, hence diesel having lower refining costs per litre, why is diesel in UK more expensive at the pump than petrol?

[/quote]

Isn't it something to do with the amount of tax?  Not up to date on this as don't have a car in London, but wasn't diesel taxed at a favourable rate, and then it changed?????

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An couple of inteesting sites HERE and HERE 

The latter is potentially useful for those unlucky enough to still be living in UK and not somewhere else ([6][:D] with the price search applet at the bottom of the page where you can submit your own prices or update out of date ones.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]Given that a barrel of crude yields more diesel than petrol, hence diesel having lower refining costs per litre, why is diesel in UK more expensive at the pump than petrol?
[/quote]

Regarding the UK diesel petrol price differential, it definitely started as a taxation difference, back in the days when diesel was about 30% less than petrol (like France up until this week!) I listened to an interesting presentation from someone from the department of transport (or whatever irrelevant name they called themselves then) who explained that through taxation (unleaded V leaded) they had tried to induce the motor industry to invest in designing "lean burn" unleaded petrol engines for the future generations of cars.

It had actually backfired as manufacturers, driven by consumer demand had instead concentrated on the new (current) generation of diesel engines, he explained that they (the government) did not accept that diesels were environmentally friendly and the way to a green future because of particulate emissions, he accepted that this may be contensious and disputed but that was in fact their position and that they would gradually increase the taxation on diesel fuel until it cost more than petrol or the demand dropped.

Several years on we see the result, demand for diesels as high as ever and the price outstripping that of petrol in the UK.

OK that is my explanation for the UK now can someone tell me what the hell is going on in France?

I last filled up with diesel about 10 days ago, I am sure that it was around €1.18 per litre, not 15 seconds ago on France3 it was shown being sold at €1.43.9 and costing more than super unleaded[:@]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="lebois"]Hi everyone,

Before you read this article, may I suggest you prepare yourself a stiff drink!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/70b4ef0a-1b91-11dd-9e58-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

I use this before topping up, every little helps!

http://www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr/

Goats do a good job of mowing the lawn.....   :)

[/quote]

Nice of Goldman Sachs to "talk up" the price so that they make more profit - not    [6]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi

Talking of a stiff drink, I read an article a couple of weeks ago reiewing the current world situation from fuel to food to domestic products and the most startling conclusion was that european domestic energy prices will double in the next two years and that by 2012 (london olympics) oil will be at 750$ a barrel. Not to mention that at the moment biofuel production curently is using 5% of the world grain production and that is set to increase to 9% in two years as well.

Photovoltaic and solar thermal is suddenly looking like a viable option....

Now where did I leave those seedlings 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="billyo"]by 2012 (london olympics) oil will be at 750$ a barrel[/quote]I've heard some outlandish claims in my time but that has to be one of the most prepostorous [:-))]

It implies a 6 fold increase over a 4 year period and at that rate of escalation the economies of the developed nations would have long since ground to a complete standstill and be in a complete recessionary crisis if not terminal meltdown. I'm not saying that things won't get worse, much worse even, because I believe that they will, but the laws of supply and demand will act as a natural check and prevent the situation getting to that stage - I hope !

For instance, the emerging countries such as China and India, who's demands are commonly held largely responsible for the massive rises in the costs of oil and raw materials, can only thrive and continue to grow when they have markets to sell to i.e. the developed nations, and if those markets are moribund then the demand falls and along with it the cost of raw materials.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Powderesal

The first link, the Economist one seemed to make total sense, it appears to be basic supply and demand economics aggravated by the manipulation of global oil prices.

Put simply too many of us have switched to diesel fuelled cars and the percentage manufacturing capacity compared with petrol is insufficient for the current demand, there is a shortage in Europe which commodity speculators love and the forward trading drives the price up, the same thing is happening with all basic foodstuffs and manufacturing materials.

It is aggravated by the fact that as fuel price rises more of us switch to diesel but supply and demand economics say that the oil companies will switch more production to the higher demand/higher price product, the price stabilising and in the long run falling.

If this were a crop shortage due to a bad harvest, the rapid rise in price followed by a switch to the higher margin crop and then oversupply and falling price is exactly what happens "in a perfect market", sadly commodity speculation creates artificial sustained high prices as we are seeing.

The part about food oil prices rising at a rate higher than fuel oil was spot on, I saw a report on Thalassa last night showing that the Marshall group of Pacific islands in Micronesia were self sufficient in bio-diesel made from copra but now that the global price of palm oil for cooking was so high they have stopped producing bio-diesel.

Looks like I wont be able to continue filling my tank with Lidl huil de friture[6]

As an aside has anyone else been getting wafts of  a friterie type smell whilst driving? My stomach and nose usually work together when I am hungry and I can often smell a "barack à frites" before it comes into view but I am getting more and more rogue indications especially on the autoroutes as the locals are switching to the own "low taxation eco-diesel".

If you are considering this yourself be warned, the smell of merguez is a dead give away,  they wont need sniffer dogs [:P]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Ernie, I was in a hurry to get to the market and put that a bit bluntly...

It was from an economic review magazine I borrowed from a US economics student on a flight, written by a group of economic lecturers, unfortunatly I cant remember the name.

Basically from what I can remeber, it based its conclusion on the following (in a perfect storm kind of way)

Increasing demand:

see India and China

the biofuel situation, either people eat or people drive, world food reserves are the lowest for thirty years governments are going to realise, hopefully sooner rather than later, that people need food more than fuel and cut back on the production of biofuels in favour of food production which will increase the pressure on oil production (see malaysia, they built three new biofuel plants and have never used them because the population decided that they would rather cook with the palm oil.) Throw in a failed harvest and it will speed the whole process up.

Supply issues:

Iran cant increase supply, the goverment takes so much of the revenue that there is no investment in production infrastructure, to the point that the system is becoming overload and unsafe; a small accident....

Saudi Arabia, said that they wont increase supply because the market demand isnt increasing. Current price hikes are driven by speculators profiting, however, the authors thought that Saudi is very near maximum supply anyway and have little wiggle room, they have also claimed the same amount of reserves in the ground for the last 20 years despite all that has been taken out, so they might have already reached peak production.

North Sea, enough said...

Exploration, there is still oil out there, but the cost of getting out of the ground is increasing exponentially, see North pole, the new apperent reserves off Australia. The article compared the net energy from one litre of oil from the canadian tar sands to a backed potato with butter (made me laugh)

Throw into all that some decent supply problems, eg the pipeline in Nigeria catching fire again or trouble in a major oil produceing country... 

As late as last year a number of economists were laughed at when they predicted 100$ a barrel. As I said, its a bit of a perfect storm situation, and Im not taking all that the article said a gospel, but a couple of things happen at the same time and who knows where the price will go, gulp.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going backtothe original thread title, yes the cost of living has increased here and is still increasing as we speak. Petrol/Diesel is going up every couple of days by one or two centimes which although tiny,soon add up. Yesterday we filled up the Berlingo vanwith 60€worth of diesel and it came to just over half a tank whereas this time last year you would have filled it and some change.

Food items have increased and not by a centime either which makes going to Lidl more expensive too as I see some regular items I have bought for years have started to increase weekly. I now only shop once per week minimum, do not go out in the car unless it is absolutely necessary and we have stopped buying luxuries like chocolate and alcohol which actually has made us lose weight and feel better. Luckily veggies are usually given freely around here and we grow our own but you cannot live on those alone. Anyone seriously thinking its cheaper to live here now should think hard before they jump out of the frying pan into the fire. I also noticed that F.Telecom now only give you five working day to pay your phone bill and EDF not a lot more - another sign of the changing economic times perhaps?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I go to a big supermarket every 4 weeks and stock up on items I cannot find a cheaper equivalent for.

A year ago, I

would spent around €60-70 at Géant. Last Saturday, I spent €130 and did not buy

anything extravagant or unusual.

A return shopping trip to Lidl and Aldi is 70km and has to be worth the time and the diesel [:)], so I go once a fortnight.

Looking back at receipts from May last year, I filled the car with €40. Yesterday, it cost €55.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The better half just came back from shopping, in the boot she had a years supply of washing machine liquid, apparantly Lidl has them on special offer at a reduction of €0.70 per bottle.

 

Looks like if  prices continue to rise we will be good for taking in clothes as another form of income. !!!!!

 

ams

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...