There was an e-mail sent round in my place of work last week requesting everyone to stop buying petrol from a certain petrol company.
Just buy it from anyone other than them. The reasoning behind it was that one company starved of custom would forced to lower their prices… OK not that simple but if could work if information was available from a central point.
Every year I journey from the north to the south to holiday, I live less than 20 miles from oil refineries, for the past 2-3 years the petrol has always been cheaper on the south coast than up here??

Paul

I have heard of this idea before but I dont think it would work here. The refinery here, which is right in the middle of the city, sells all the petrol that is used in the city (I think) but they are not affiliated with any of the petrol stations that sell it to customers. Also, each seller is supposedly not making much profit since each seller is trying to undercut each other.

I checked some numbers and according to the refinery website, they were selling petrol for $1.55 per gallon, Texas adds $.20 (£0.03 per liter) per gallon on tax, I paid $2.09 per gallon so profit was $0.34 per gallon or £0.05 per liter.

The main argument, as I understand it, in the U.S. against an increase in tax (or any tax) on fuel will cause businesses to increase the price for their goods/services thus passing the tax back to the individual (actually I would prefer 0% tax on commerce/industry and fuel).