They pay less because they are taxed less.

They pay around 410cents per gallon(US) or 54p per litre. With a spread of 388-459cents per gallon or 52p - 61p per litre.

We pay 116p per litre of which 50p is duty and 17p VAT

Take that off and we get 49p per litre. If you account for sales taxes and the petrol stations profit, then the actual petrol cost is probably around the same.

Note that back in Oct 07 the US was paying around 279cents per gallon. So the cost of petrol has gone up 47% where as here, in the same time frame it has only risen 20%

Go figure

America is a very different market to the UK, if we were to look at Europe we woudl see that the following countries all have higher petrol costs than the UK

Belgium
Denmark
Finland
Germany
Netherlands
Italy
Norway
Portugal

 

How is that calculated, on a straight Euro/pound conversion or based on relative GDP/head etc?

The recent fall in the pound has made the comparative cost of fuel in europe rise significantly.

 

What is wrong is the markets trade on theoretical future Oil output and supply / demand issues, creating a totaly artifical price for the cost of a barrel of oil.

Current production has been increased recently and there is a current world wide surplus (small surplus) compared to demand so any price increase is based on the markets getting scared that instability in the middle east could result in a future short fall of oil and problems. This then drives the price of oil because of the trading market.

It has not suddenly become 40% more expensive to extract the same oil in the last year.

Yes there is considerable investment costs required to obtain new sources, but the current extract costs are not going up an creating this price increase.

Financial Speculation is the current reason for the recent large price increases.

Extract from Wikipedia -
[QUOTE]
Financial speculation
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (June 2008)

In May 2008, Uwe Beckmeyer, transport chief for Germany's Social Democrats, said a recent 25 percent rise in the price of oil to $135 a barrel had nothing to do with underlying supply and demand;

 

Ah entirely possible - I understand patterns and theory but the specifics of the numbers somehow get scrambled between my head and the calculator and end up wrong. That's normal !

Still quite offended at the dig though - we don't all need to be mathematics geniuses to survive.

 

Never mind poppet.

 

Why be offended?

This is high school maths stuff that most GCSE kids would get. But to be fair, they are around it all the time. In your adult life, you've obviously not had much use (or just not applied)for math and have forgotten most of what you were taught. It happens.

But I will say this, in a financially run world it can be very important to get your math right, get it worng and you could end up paying big time.

 

Put the kettle on while you're there love.



And Russell, I thought I was a patronizing old git, now I know I'm an amateur........

 

It isn't what you said, its the way you said it; I can't think of a way of explaining it in type that makes any sense though. Perhaps that's my basic lack of literacy letting me down too.

 

[QUOTE=russellhq,Jul 1 2008, 09:13 PM] Nice try

 

I guess it's a semantics game, the current rising fuel costs are solely down to recent rises in fuel costs, and they're not getting any cheaper, hence my stance. The current high cost of fuel is a factor of high tax and rising fuel costs, not what I'm debating. That's two different arguments.

If you want to talk about cutting fuel duties then we better start looking at what that will cost.

Firstly, the economic impact of a cut in duty.

Last year the government took in