Petrol Prices Going up Again

I've just filled up my car at 107.9p a litre at my local Shell station. That seems to be a good price - Tescos are asking 111.9p at the moment and I have seen higher.

I don't live too far from the main refinery at Stanlow so that may help but when I visit my in-laws out Manchester way (or is it my out-laws in Manchester way?) I see the prices tend to be about 4p a litre dearer than home.

I'm sure that prices must be at the level they were a year or two back when we had fuel protests and blockades and everyone drove at 60mph on the Motorways to conserve fuel. This time around, I guess there is less fuss because of a combination of the recession and newer cars are actually getting significantly more fuel-efficient. Nobody wants to rock the boat and fewer miles are being travelled enyway.

Here's a graph I stole from moneyweek.com showing oil prices:

It seems to show a sharp dip before Christmas, then a staggering rise and now it should be on its way down again. I'm not sure how precisely petrol prices relate to the raw crude price nor how long this takes effect but I wouldn't be expecting the price hike we are seeing at the moment.

Obviously, a large chunk of fuel costs goes to the Exchequer, maybe being an Election-year, there may be some hope of Alistair trying to win over the motorist but whatever happens, I'm sure post May 6th (if the rumours are true) everything would revert to screwing the petrol-head. I can't see it being any different under the Tories either - remember it was them that introduced the fuel price escalator which Labour made slightly worse but were then forced to scrap.
(I don't like quoting wiki but that is much as I remember it)

Every year or so, an email gets circulated saying how we can beat the Oil Companies by refusing to buy from two of the main suppliers - it's always some combination of Esso, Shell and BP thus forcing them to drop their prices. It'll never work for two reasons:

i) The email was probably started by one of those sad people who just tries to get their emails forwarded to as many people as possible, the chance of everyone getting the same version at the same time is pretty remote.

ii) The British public are too ambivalent to bother anyway. There was a national, well-organised and well-publicised call for everyone to refuse to buy any petrol on one particular Friday around the time of the big fuel-protests at the turn of the Century. This was a tactic that worked with a degree of success in the States causing big problems for the fuel distribution networks and having a significant impact on the Oil Companies over there. It would have been no big deal for British people to fill up on the Thursday or Saturday instead but they didn't do it.

The only way to try to keep fuel prices at a sensible level is to always shop around. To help, I use this site which, although it can be a few days out of date, is generally pretty reliable.