The true cost of Diesel?

I came across this the other day:

**LINK**

Where I live Diesel is only about 2 pence a litre more expensive than Petrol but given that you only get half as much Diesel per barrel of crude compared to petrol shouldn’t it be a lot more expensive? Not withstanding VAT and Fuel duty I wonder why Diesel is being sold so cheap or am I missing something?

Interesting question.

Couple of thoughts. (well four actually)

1. The price at the pump is mostly Tax.

2. It's all one process. You crack your barrel of oil into all the components and sell each product at whatever price you can with the overhead spread out accross the range. If you doubled the price of deisel everyone would switch to petrol.

3. At one time the refineries used to flare off the petrol as there was no market for it.

4. I would be interested to know if I would be right in thinking that fuel is the least profitable part of the barrel as oppposed to chemicals, plastics lubricating oils etc.

regards Martin

Leaving aside the fact that diesel and petrol have different 'power signatures' and the difficulty of evaluating their work comparison in ordinary road use, the pump prices are entirely set by marketing considerations such as demand, stocking reserves and topically, public attitudes and media coercian, not to mention political 'weather'.

With politics always eyeing up false environmental pressures the future of diesel pricing looks problematic........

The price has nothing to do with how much of any one fraction one might get from a barrel.

Little fifferent than mixing one gallon of water with two gallons of oil - on separation, the one gallon of water is not worth twice that of the oil.

Cost and worth are not the same thing with oil fractions.

A barrel of oil can be fractionated, initially into the full range of boiling point components - from gases, volatile liquids, less volatile liquids, to (eventually) remaining solids. This would vary with the type of crude, particularly dependent on origin (north sea oil is more valuable as it contains more of the lighter components).

Further refining can be arranged to crack the longer carbon chain constituents into smaller carbon chain liquids and gases.

Each stage costs money and the final range of products may each have a different value, dependent on how useful they might be. Fuels for burning are not particularly exciting, do not require so much refining and have less value than feedstocks for, say, plastics production. The design of the cracking process can tailored to achieve different ratios of final products (more, or less, of one constituent compared with another),

I note a trend in this type of thread, from this poster, which have undertones of 'diesel haters'. Very much akin to nimbyism where renewable energy instalkations might be involved. The OP, I think, needs to look more closely at the refining industry before jumping to incorrect conclusions in order to try to stir up more hysterical claptrap about different oil fractions. Diesel is not only burned in vehicle engines. The same fraction, and closely related ones, are burned in oil fired central heating installations which are still a popular choice for home heating in places which do not have gas mains.

I think the main effect of the flak diesel is getting is to make petrol users feel less guilty about their carbon emissions.

I read somewhere that petrol and diesel are the waste products of the oil cracking process

I read somewhere that petrol and diesel are the waste products of the oil cracking process

A by-product might be a better description. We should not be wasting anything from this valuable resource!

Not Done It Yet, I think you are on to something and Vic the original poster is on a soapbox as a diesel hater. I am just about to buy another car and yup tis a 3 litre diesel.

Yup, Three threads in the same vein started in just the last month!

Diesel haters as maybe, but the reality is that diesel haters could not live if they boycotted buying any and all goods that didn't come to them under diesel power. It's all well and good having these green feelings, but real life doesn't work like that!

Vic and Diesel are like Blowlamp and Bitcoin...

Vic and Diesel are like Blowlamp and Bitcoin...

Please enlighten, or do you mean the same as 'like a dog with a bone'?

Some of you may not like progress but it’s coming anyway whether you like it or not. In days gone by folks extolled the virtue of horse transport and the steam engine but they went the same way that Diesel will eventually, at least for road transport.

Never owned a Diesel - so I cannot really say too much about them.

I owned a 3ltr Alfa Romeo for 12 years (from new - and she was called Bella) and (this may surprise you) but she used to sing to me. I have to tell you that I really loved that car and I still miss her - which is a strange thing to admit really. I now drive her younger sister (Bel) who is so modest that she only costs me £30 a year in road tax (instead of £300).

But whilst I'm very fond of Bel, I'm afraid my heart remains elsewhere...

Now what were we talking about - oh yes - Diesels...

IanT

So will petrol - it will run out, 'cos the dinosaurs aren't making any more! And petrol is likely no better than diesel when push comes to shove.

The electric revolution is coming; ICE vehicles, as we know them today, will be a thing of the past. Nowt to do with diesel prices compared to petrol, I might add.

It's not a question of liking or not liking progress Vic, and progress isn't always a good thing, but of accepting the reality of life today, as we live it, as it is presented to us, as is factual today, not as we might like it to be in some dreamy wishful way. We have what we have.

When technology has moved on then something else will be presented to us, but in the meantime diesel - and oil of other extractions - powers all transport of goods as well as most folk, except for some electric trains, and will do for the forseeable future. It also powers some of the electric power station that supply the national grid, so even if we use electric power oil is sometimes the provider of that electric power.

It may not be what you want but is what you have, and will have for quite a while yet.

Probably!

Over here in Ireland, Diesel is 10c / ltr cheaper than petrol.

About 12 years ago we were all 'persuaded' to buy diesel vehicles because of the evil petrol pollution. Now the Greenies want to bring the cost of petrol up to match diesel because of the evil diesel pollution, and they wonder why they don't get any votes.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

Surely the real debate should be whether one uses anthracite, steam coal or soft coal in one's firebox?

Things will most likely go full circle and in a few years time petrol will become the new evil. I love my diesels, over 35 years with one old series Land Rover, no pollution involved in making me another one to drive. I ran a Perkins "Prima" engine Montego for 248000 miles with just a new water pump and a wheel bearing. All the time returning 54 MPG. Which pollutes most ? I would have worn two or three petrol engine cars out in that time.