Today the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the UK’s consumer and competition authority, announced they will be launching a review of petrol and diesel prices at UK forecourts.
The main concern that has triggered this investigation is the price of fuel at the pump and how much it has increased over the years. According to PetrolPrices.com data, petrol prices have risen by 37% from an average price of 97.0 pence per litre in June 2007 to an average of 133.15 pence per litre in June 2012. Diesel rose by 42% in the same period with the average price leaping from 104.0 pence per litre in June 2007 to 147.3 pence per litre in June 2012. Last week the average price for petrol in the UK was 138.8 pence per litre and for diesel 152.1 pence per litre.
Claire Hart, from OFT said:
“We are keenly aware of continuing widespread concern about the pump price of petrol and diesel and we have heard a number of different claims about how the market is operating.
“We have therefore decided to take a broad based look at this sector, to provide an opportunity for people to share their concerns and evidence with us. This will help us determine whether claims about competition problems are well-founded and whether any further action is warranted.”
The OFT have invited the industry, motoring groups and consumer bodies to help them with their investigation and submit any information that may be of use for the review. A range of issues will be reviewed including consumer concern over the price of fuel in rural areas, the possible effect supermarkets and major oil companies are having on independent retailers and the possible lack of competition in the fuel industry. They also want to check whether the falling price of crude oil is actually being reflected in the price of fuel at the pump.
The OFT plan on spending 6 weeks reviewing the information and releasing the results in January 2013. As soon as the results are released we will update you with their findings. Text courtesy of Petrol Prices.
Now we have to ask why fuel prices are so high?
Is it because of retailers without morals?
Is it because of fuel suppliers manipulating the market and thus creating a monopoly?
The answer to both of those questions has to be a definite no. Look at the image below and learn where the money that you spend on diesel or petrol actually goes.
Now, I am far from being a mathematician but do you see something strange going on here?
I can only see one monopoly and that is a Government ran scheme. lete me explain. Firstly the company that pulls the oil out of the earth have their own overheads and they must also make a profit. That is business whether you hate oil companies or not so look at the image above for petrol, you will see that duty is charged on it.
Duty is a form of taxation that is imposed by Government and used to ensure revenue for the exchequer before the product is allowed to marekt. Then we have the oil companies costs. But then we have the clincher!
VAT or value added tax! So there we have the scam, apply duty and then apply VAT before we buy the fuel.
I think that we now know who runs the monopoly regarding fuel!
It is a nice little earner when you cream almost 70% tax off of one product.
I bet that the OFT will not investigate that!
I am old enough to remember a similar enquiry many years ago into why all petrol semmed to be priced exactly the same wherever you bought it from. After the retailers met the Govt, the Govt announced that identical prices really showed that competition was working, so well in fact that prices were driven down amongst different retailers to the very lowest level possible – even to the decimal point. So, no collusion or anything, just the market working well.
They expected the Great British Public to swallow this bollocks – which, of course, they duly did. Nothing to see here folks, now move along please.