Fuel Price

[Greenpeace]

A mate of mine bought a nearly new V6, VT Commodore, in 2000/2001.
It was when Optimax was fairly recent on the market. He regularly used the car on long distance drives and swore blind that the car would get over 100kms more per tank running on Optimax than It would on regular unleaded.

 

[1972Ren]

For want of any better place to put this.
An article from The Economist.

"How supply-chain turmoil is remaking the car industry. Learning from Elon Musk"

 

[Russell Hall]

The lesson from supply chain turmoil is to make as many parts as possible in house in the one central place as Peugeot once did at Sochaux and don't rely on unreliable foreign suppliers who play games. Items like electrical components were not made inhouse but Peugeot had investments in these companies and a seat on their boards. Worked well. A lesson being relearned.

 

[1972Ren]

On the other hand, Westerners have saved trillions of $ by buying goods manufactured in China, and elsewhere.
Sure you can choose to manufacture everything domestically so you are not at the mercy of unreliable foreign suppliers, but the flip side is that you will be in a country of paupers. Not that any country so far has been an unreliable supplier anyway, so the point is moot.

I note that if all countries had that attitude, and aimed for self sufficiency, then the agriculture export industry you like to extol, wouldn't exist.

 

[Russell Hall]

You conflate a comment about the value of a motor manufacturer with inhouse operation into a general rather vacuous conclusion bout international trade.
Companies can be very unreliable and refuse to supply components to others for competitive advantage or for other reasons. For that reason large operations prefer multiple suppliers. Countries have always used trade and supply for political and economic pressure. Those that are fond of the practice must by definition be deemed unreliable partners.
Supply logistics for a motor manufacturing operation is complex and demanding. Some companies like Peugeot do it better than others.

 

[Greenpeace]

Meanwhile at British Leyland.

 

[1972Ren]

You conflate a comment about the value of a motor manufacturer with inhouse operation into a general rather vacuous conclusion bout international trade.

And yet, you immediately start referring to international trade
"Countries have always used trade and supply for political and economic pressure. Those that are fond of the practice must by definition be deemed unreliable partners."

I must say I am not aware of this sort of thing being a problem:
"Companies can be very unreliable and refuse to supply components to others for competitive advantage or for other reasons"

But in any case I thought you were saying that "The lesson from supply chain turmoil is to make as many parts as possible in house in the one central place", but now you are saying "For that reason large operations prefer multiple suppliers".

 

[1972Ren]

Meanwhile at British Leyland.

And that worked out really well!

 

[Russell Hall]

Meanwhile at British Leyland.

View attachment 206320

Yes, the British motor industry was not the poster boy for supply logistics.

 

[Russell Hall]

And yet, you immediately start referring to international trade
"Countries have always used trade and supply for political and economic pressure. Those that are fond of the practice must by definition be deemed unreliable partners."

I must say I am not aware of this sort of thing being a problem:
"Companies can be very unreliable and refuse to supply components to others for competitive advantage or for other reasons"

But in any case I thought you were saying that "The lesson from supply chain turmoil is to make as many parts as possible in house in the one central place", but now you are saying "For that reason large operations prefer multiple suppliers".

Not all components are made in-house even in the most integrated operations. Glass, electricals, fuel systems were bought in by everyone. The fact your knowledge of trade is limited doesn't mean events don't happen.

 

[56 Fregate]

Why would the British need a buoyant motor industry when they have the cash cow Royals.

 

[Kim Luck]

The motor vehicle industry in Victoria in the 70's suffered greatly due to Union action at Australia's only manufacturer of propeller shafts, Hardie Spicer, whose employees were on strike two weeks out of every five, halting the flow of shafts and thus the manufacturers were unable to complete their vehicles. Trying to schedule production at IHC and keep 1600 souls employed was a nightmare. In the end, IHC started it's own prop-shaft manufacturing and balancing in house using imported yokes etc. rendering Hardy Spicer's constantly interrupted production irrelevant.

 

[Russell Hall]

Ouch. Diesel delivery $2.40 a litre. Close to the transport industry estimate of $2.50 for winter. World oil price has had downward pressures this week, $US 10 a barrel lower for Brent but our fuel price rises. Fears of recession and continuing Covid lockdowns in China saw the bears have a run. Rising inflation worries everyone. The Americans have been quietly importing Russian oil and fertiliser to try to keep prices down. No idea where our fuel comes from now. Guessing the South Korean refiners who provided us with diesel from Russian ESPO now have to source far afield. Tanker rates are up to $US165,000 a day and having tankers on 120 day voyages because of sanctions ups the cost. Plenty of Indian refined product on offer just don't ask where the oil came from.

 

[Armidillo]

We have been providing the good citizens of New England with opportunities to view the XM as it wafts between Armidale to Tenterfield, with excursions as far North as Toowoomba.

Low fuel warning light came on just as we glided into Guyra on Tuesday afternoon, so I bit the bullet and filled up - no 95, so had to be 98 octane.

It took 90 litres! At 224.9 c/l, that came to $202.41. I can say without a shadow of doubt that that is the most I have ever spent to fill a passenger car!!

 

[1972Ren]

World oil price has had downward pressures this week, $US 10 a barrel lower for Brent but our fuel price rises. Fears of recession and continuing Covid lockdowns in China saw the bears have a run. Rising inflation worries everyone.

Crude fell $10 in a single day 2 days ago, as market obsession suddenly switched to fear of recession.
Our fuel prices have absolutely nothing to do with Brent, and indeed Brent is so disconnected from price of oil even in the USA, that there is up to a $10 difference between them, and that has been the case over many years.

The Americans have been quietly importing Russian oil and fertiliser to try to keep prices down.

This is not even a quarter truth. "The Americans" have a 100% ban on Russian crude oil imports.
There are suggestions that some tiny amounts of refined products, made in India from Russian oil, could have made there way to the US, as it is hard to identify movements like that. Contrary to the above claim, there is no intention or policy to import oil from Russia.

No idea where our fuel comes from now.

All the same places it has for years. Korea, Singapore, India.

 

[Russell Hall]

Brent is only taken as a market indicator. A reliable guide along with West Texas Crude as to where the market is heading. I can't be bothered listing different prices for different grades for the benefit of internet nit pickers. We don't actually know the supply chain of our fuel so I can't quote the price of our supply. Korea and Singapore are refiners of oil not producers. India has only become a major exporter of refined product since West Indian refineries have taken advantage of discounted Russian crude to export refined Russian product to the U.S. and the EU. Such as the load of refined fuel Reliance landed in New York on May 22 although everyone knew it was from Russian crude bought on the spot market.
The Americans make the rules others like Australia choose to follow while having national interest cop outs themselves. So the U.S. can legally import Russian oil and refined product if deemed in the national interest to do so. Which in this case is keeping fuel prices down and the economy running. American fertiliser companies have been told by the Biden administration to import cheap Russian fertiliser to help keep domestic prices down and agricultural production up while our farmers are made to buy overpriced fertiliser from high profit North American companies. America has changed its policy approach because the oil sanctions served only to increase Russian oil income by 54% this year while inflicting price pain on NATO associated countries. That is if Janet Yelland the Treasury Secretary is enunciating Biden government policy. Biden slams American fuel companies, accusing EXXON of "making more money than God" rather than his sanction policy for surging oil prices. U.S. Treasury policy now is that the world needs Russian oil flows but measures should be taken to reduce their profits. Biden was going to trash the Russian economy and turn the Rouble to ruble. The outcome was to give them the strongest trade surplus for years and turn the Rouble into currently the strongest performing world currency.
The Americans remain very concerned about future oil supplies but attempts to reconcile with Iran and Venezuela brought little result and relations with OPEC, particularly Saudi remain fraught. That game is in play this week. Most American analysts see the elements of a perfect storm and the most fraught supply environment since 1974. Sanctions have destroyed the price based trading system for oil and skewed world oil flows. It's unlikely the old trading patterns will return.

 

[Kenfuego]

I have found over time that the Brent Crude price is a good world indicator and that Costco fuels seemed to reflect similar changes in each other, but we probably won't see any better guide until the new Government find where it is at in fixing anything that matters to us motorists, lot of huffing and puffing but largely motorists will be left to stew in their own juice.

The oil industry has a track record in the past of advantaging itself when governments have reduced tax exise on fuel and it is a moot point if the 22 cents excise break ever gave any advantage to motorists and there are so many excuses around (as Joe Biden uses to excuse his own missteps) I doubt if much will be done until some crucial election comes up. If we had decent keep the sods honest independents in upper houses that could do something for Mr and Mrs Average motorist family. I just don't see that doing any good.

Brent crude was

23/06/2022 $112

Down 2.5% on the day

Up 50% on the year.

 

[Haakon]

Hi. An interesting article in todays media.

Cheers.

Uncovering clean energy’s inconvenient truth​

Chris Uhlmann

Here’s an inconvenient truth: the transition to net-zero emissions will be expensive.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed how embedded fossil fuel is in the world economy and how wrenching rapid change can be. Cutting off the world’s largest gas exporter, the second biggest exporter of crude oil and the third largest coal exporter is the shot heard around the world because when you make essential goods rare, the price rises.

Here the fallout is a surge in wholesale power prices, as the highest cost of generation sets the dispatch price in the National Electricity Market and our gas and black coal prices are linked to international benchmarks. Putting more renewable energy on the grid will not guarantee lower prices because all the talk about how cheap it is rests on an average, or ‘‘levelised’’, cost of generation, not the actual cost of sustaining a power source that cannot deliver continuous energy unsupported.

As JP Morgan’s annual energy paper points out, those costs include transmission, backup thermal power and utility-scale storage. Whatever fills the intermittent power void won’t be cheap; a study commissioned by Industry Super Australia calculated the cost of battery storage for Australia at $6.5 trillion. To that add the cost of ancillary services needed to keep the retooled electricity system reliable, a service that was once a byproduct of electricity generation in old-world power stations.

Germany stands as a stark testimony. It has spent more than €500 billion ($743 billion) transitioning its electricity system, boosting wind and solar to more than 45 per cent of generation since 2000. But it had to keep 89 per cent of its fossil-fired capacity to deal with the problems caused by calm, dark days. It now boasts Europe’s most expensive retail power and is strategically exposed because the country can’t function without imported gas.

Europe has acknowledged the difficulties involved by designating gas and nuclear energy as ‘‘green’’ investments. The EU’s commissioner for financial services, Mairead McGuinness, says this is because, ‘‘we firmly believe that this recognises the need for these energy sources in transition’’.

If the energy transition is to succeed here, the road runs through more gas and an end to state moratoriums on exploration and development. This recognition is beyond the wit of some governments as, once again, extremists rule the debate putting Australia on the road to disaster that will hit the poorest hardest.

And decarbonising electricity generation is the tip of the iceberg because it represents only 19 per cent of the world’s final global energy consumption. As one of the world’s leading energy experts, Professor Vaclav Smil, details in How the World Really Works, ‘‘the decarbonisation of more than 80 per cent of final energy users ... will be even more challenging’’.

‘‘We have no readily deployable commercial-scale alternatives for energising the production of the four pillars of modern civilisation solely by electricity,’’ Smil writes. “This means that even with an abundant and reliable renewable electricity supply, we would still have to develop new large-scale processes to produce steel, ammonia, cement and plastics.’’

One of the pillars, ammonia, is the foundation for industrial fertilisers on which half of the world’s agriculture depends. The chemical process that creates it relies on natural gas, coal or oil. When the fuel used by farm machinery and trucks that transport food is added to the mix, Smil calculates the embedded energy in a 250 gram baguette at two tablespoons of diesel. A 125g Spanish tomato bought in a Scandinavian market is five tablespoons.

Fossil fuel is embedded in the modern world. In the 20 years Germany has been transitioning its electricity system, the share of fossil fuel in the country’s primary energy supply has only declined from 84 per cent to 78 per cent. The International Energy Agency’s review of the world’s stated policies shows fossil fuel demand will fall from 80 per cent in 2019 to 72 per cent by 2040. The IEA notes getting the world on track for net-zero emissions by 2050 requires transition-related investment to rise to about $US4 trillion a year by 2030, ‘‘but only a minority of these investments immediately deliver zero emissions energy or energy services’’.

The energy transition is inevitable, but it will be a lot harder than politicians, activists and billionaire energy hobbyists would have you believe. In trying to solve the current crisis, the political class should keep one thing in mind: no one ever won an election by promising to make voters colder, poorer and hungrier.

Chris Uhlmann is political editor for Nine News.

That was an annoying and stupid read... Surely someone has tried to fact check him...? Maybe he should go for a job at The Australian...

 

[Haakon]

Hi.

I was at the local fuel station a few days ago filling up Mrs Whippets 2008 on 95 RON as per the sticker on the fuel flap. So full disclosure, this is the conversation that I had.

Adjacent to me was a cab driver filling his Toyota Camry Hybrid with 98RON. So I casually remarked to him "is he made of money". He took it well and was keen to have a chat.

I asked him why he was using 98RON, and he responded that others had told him he would get more kms out of a tank. When asked he said he got 150 to 180 km's more on 98RON than by using 91RON. I found this quite surprising, and I challenged him that this couldn’t be the case. He said that it was and he had kept records. So I accepted this at face value.

I asked him if he knew what was different between the 91, 95 & 98 RON fuels, he said he had no idea, and thought that the 98 gave better fuel economy and a cleaner engine, but wasn’t sure. Certainly he said that the larger number must mean it is better. So those cunning marketers have been successful in influencing consumer behaviour.

I looked at his fuel flap and the only sticker on the flap was for E10 fuel, no sticker for straight petrol. I asked if he had ever used E10 (which is 94 or 95RON) and he had never done so. He also indicated that he had never used 95RON, only 91 a few times then mostly 98.

I indicated to him that there are very few vehicles on the Australian road that specifically need to use 98, most Asian vehicles can use 91 and many Europeon vehicles need 95. I suggested to him that he would get the same fuel economy using 95 as for 98 and would save him some running costs. He did indicate that he would try 95 on his next refill. I will likely never see him again, as it would be interesting to know what the outcome was for the 95RON.

Later on.
I searched for some information on this vehicle and: The hybrid has a 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine running the more efficient Atkinson Cycle, mated with two electric motors. The non-hybrid requires 91RON regular unleaded fuel, while the hybrid takes 95RON premium unleaded. This vehicle has a 50 Lt fuel tank and a claimed 4.2L/100km on the combined cycle. So lets add 10% to that to bring it into the real world = 4.6L/100km. Lets also assume he use 45Lt per tank. So 45Lt / 0.046 = 978km. He should get 978km from a tank. If as he says he gets 150 to 180 (let’s use 165km) less distance when using 91RON he is 17% worse off. I find such a large difference difficult to believe.

But I now know that the engine is tuned to use 95RON, and by running it on 91RON I assume that the engine ECU must detune the operating parameters enough to explain the large difference in fuel consumption.

Unless anyone else has any other explanation?

Cheers

91, 95 and 98 all have the same energy content, only difference is the knock resistance. So in an engine designed for 91, the computer "might" be able to advance the ignition based on knock sensor data and get a little more power, but its marginal and very much depending on the actual engine, its design and MAP. But most engines are pretty well optimised and you're throwing money away putting a higher octane fuel in.

Same goes for 95 to 98. Its not so much a matter of higher octane giving more power, its too low an octane damaging the engine or stripping power as the ECU goes into protection settings...

 

[Greenpeace]

91, 95 and 98 all have the same energy content, only difference is the knock resistance. So in an engine designed for 91, the computer "might" be able to advance the ignition based on knock sensor data and get a little more power, but its marginal and very much depending on the actual engine, its design and MAP. But most engines are pretty well optimised and you're throwing money away putting a higher octane fuel in.

Same goes for 95 to 98.

I remember either Modern Motor or Wheels tested the 760 Turbo Volvo when it was new.
Initially they couldn't work out why the acceleration numbers were the same as the NA version. Turned out someone had fueled it up with standard petrol. Once they put premium fuel in it the Turbo version delivered the performance that it was renowned for at the time.
So if you in this case anyway, the wrong fuel meant it lost a lot of power.