FuelClub Discount

Saturday’s unprecedented 20% hike in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices has not only made domestic travel more expensive, but the fuel surcharge for international flights is all set to rise sharply as well. While airlines are expected to announce hikes by Tuesday, travel agents said an Indian carrier that flies abroad has already started charging higher surcharge from Sunday midnight itself.

“The fuel surcharge on a return Delhi-London sector flights has increased by almost Rs 1,000 from the earlier figure of Rs 10,390. Other sectors have also gone up but marginally for now. That may change by Tuesday,” said the travel agent. Unlike domestic flights that currently have two fixed levels of surcharge, each international sector has a different cess.

Singapore Airlines said it had recently hiked surcharge. “On India-Singapore sector, the surcharge has gone up from $80 to $95 per ticket. Flying to Australia via Singapore now has a surcharge of $190, up from earlier $160. Flying to US through Singapore now has a surcharge of $245, up from earlier $210,” said Gunjan Chanana, Singapore Airline spokesperson.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it spent $800m (£400m) last year, but rising food and fuel prices are pushing up costs.

Millions of people already suffering because of armed conflict were hard hit by the increases, says the report.

Africa remains the largest area of Red Cross spending.

The ICRC, based in Geneva, said spending in African nations accounted for 45% of the organisation’s field budget in 2007.
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France called on the G7 on Tuesday to press oil-producing nations to boost their output in a bid to bring down prices that have reached record highs and thrown a spanner in oil-fired economies.

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said she would put the request to her counterparts of the Group of Seven club of rich countries to seek a common front with Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

“We cannot forever be in a market system in which the price is permanently on the rise, to the benefit of producers, who are building up major oil revenues,” Lagarde told France 2 television.
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Even as the cost of crude oil has soared in recent years, the amount pumped from the ground hasn’t.

Worldwide oil production has barely budged, despite record prices. Since the start of 2004, oil’s price has gone from $33 per barrel to $132. Production, meanwhile, has risen just 1.8 percent, to 84.6 million barrels per day.

That’s not enough to keep pace with the world’s growing thirst for oil, which has increased 3.7 percent during the same time. And the imbalance between supply and demand keeps pushing prices higher. It’s one of the main reasons gasoline now costs more than $4 per gallon.

This isn’t the way economics are supposed to work. When a product is in short supply, the price rises, and the companies that make it usually produce more so they can cash in. Supply eventually outstrips demand and the price goes down.
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Lorry drivers are to pour into London for what organisers hope will be the largest-ever fuel duty protest in the capital.

Hauliers are angry at soaring fuel prices which have resulted in the average cost of diesel passing far beyond the 120p-a-litre mark.

Led by lorry drivers from Kent, the protest is expected to attract hundreds of hauliers from all around the UK.
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Business is good for John Leighton. His company, which makes anti-theft devices for the diesel tanks of lorries and buses, has seen sales increase by 45 per cent so far this year amid warnings of an upsurge in “fuel rustling” sparked by sharply rising forecourt prices.

While petrol prices have risen inexorably in recent weeks to about 114p per litre, diesel – a fuel that could once be relied upon to undercut the cost of petrol – is now on average 12p per litre more expensive, which is causing financial difficulties for heavy users such as the haulage industry.

The AA said the 5.7 per cent rise in British diesel prices in the past month was the steepest since 2000 and warned that the intervention of speculative investors on world crude oil markets was helping to push up prices to more than $135 (£68) per barrel – more than double the cost of 12 months ago.
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