FuelClub Discount

Talks to avoid another strike by Shell tanker drivers agree a pay deal for 641 drivers contracted to distribute fuel for Shell are to continue on Tuesday.

The drivers, employed by Hoyer UK and Suckling Transport, are to return to work from 6am today after a four-day strike - but without a pay agreement, the drivers’ union, Unite, has given warning of another four-day-stoppage from Friday.

A spokesman for Unite said: “We are still talking and I can say that we are not many miles apart.”

There are renewed fears that if the pay dispute drags on, other drivers contracted to work for other oil companies may also join in industrial action.
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Motorists in the UK have suffered from a far higher rise in petrol prices than their European neighbours, according to a report on Wednesday.

The cost of unleaded petrol has risen by 20 per cent in the UK over the last year, a far greater increase than across the Continent, where prices have risen by just 14 per cent.

In Italy and Germany prices have risen by less than 10 per cent.

The research by the Post Office Travel Services – which has stripped out the volatile effects of exchange rates - has led to accusations that British motorists have been left out of pocket by punative tax rises. Only Dutch motorists have to pay more tax than the British, according to the AA.
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Protests against spiralling fuel costs have spread to several parts of Europe as fishermen, truckers and farmers marched on government offices, blocked ports and oil depots and even handed out free fish to attract public sympathy for their plight.

Demonstrations that began two weeks ago in France and closed a London highway last week spread to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Ireland, and continued over the weekend. Nationwide strikes brought the Spanish and Portuguese commercial fishing industries to a virtual standstill.

Thousands of demonstrators, some carrying banners and some using fishing boats to blockade ports, protested bitterly against fuel prices that have more than tripled in the past five years, and have risen 30 to 50 per cent to record levels in recent months. The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, said last week that the European Union should cut some fuel taxes. On Friday he and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, visited a Paris supermarket and mingled with shoppers. Mr Sarkozy was taken aback by the prices he encountered. “Everything is really too expensive,” he said to a florist.
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Construction on the Yeongjong new city within the Incheon Free Economic Zone has stopped after dump truck drivers walked off the job demanding fee raises. Self-employed truckers are striking down in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, while unionized cargo truck drivers are thinking about holding a nationwide strike next month, raising worries of serious logistics problems. There has been a 30 percent drop in the number of fishing vessels going out into the East Sea this year, leading to a 20 to 30 percent rise in prices of fishery products. Each inter-city commuter bus is racking up between W3 million to W4 million (US$1=W1,037) in losses and half of the 100 or so operators of such transport services are in the red. The source of all these troubles is a 60 percent rise in the price of diesel fuel.

Diesel is the preferred means of energy for Korea’s working class. The transportation industry accounts for 80 percent of Korea’s total diesel consumption. Self-employed Korean cargo and dump truck drivers, operators of commuter buses and merchants selling products on the backs of small trucks, farmers and fishermen all rely on diesel.
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Britain sought a slight increase in oil production from its North Sea fields on Wednesday, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that only coordinated global action could help rein in spiralling oil prices.

A day after British truck drivers caused road chaos with protests against rising fuel bills, Brown said he understood the impact on families across the country but that only an international strategy could help bring oil prices down.
“A global shock on this scale requires global solutions,” Brown wrote in the Guardian newspaper, pledging to put international action on oil prices at the top of the agenda at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan in July.
“In advance of the G8 summit, I will be proposing further work internationally to achieve a better dialogue on supply possibilities and trends in demand,” he wrote.

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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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