May 08, 2010 07:00 AM
Are You Buying Your Gas From BP Or One Of Their Subsidiaries?
The effectiveness of boycotts can be debated. Glenn Beck and Fox News have been hard hit, especially in the UK -- which proves that it never hurts to try.
Low on gas, I risked being stranded the other day to avoid spending money at a BP station. BP also owns AM/PM and ARCO stations so you may want to avoid them if you don't want to inadvertently give them your hard earned dollars.
Planning to change your oil soon? Castrol oil is wholly owned by BP and if you own a boat, BP sells fuel and lubricants for those as well. I'm not a fan of any of the big oil companies, but I have chosen not to spend one thin dime with BP and encourage others to follow suit.
Boycott sounds like a make shift bed at the Vatican.
It would be boy cott due to recently revealed tendencies of that religion's pastors. No such thing as girl cott anyway. With insult to comment neither make any sense, but I got a chuckle from the original.
Public transportation..mmmm..my rural hovel is nowhere near any. Nor is there any within at least 6 miles of here, and that is a Greyhound on I10 . Public transport is not valid for most others either. Only valid for city types or commuters to cities like NYC, Chicago and the like. Down in LA (lower Alabama)our horses and mules are not allowed in town because of their emissions. Strange thing about that, emissions are sort of like methane, a natural fuel source. Corn , beans, sugar cane what ever veggie you choose is ..thane available. Even, and for sure, cow plop can be turned into fuel readily. I think there is regulation to prevent that and prevent the making of alcohol for any reason unless controlled and taxed. A bicycle, now trhere is the answer. I can pedal until I have a stroke with my one leg and quadruple bypass while pulling my oxygen bottle along side. It is six miles to the convenience store, a BP one. Can I pedal some more to avoid it? I suppose an answer to the boycott could be to have cows, make illegal alcohol and get some one to take you to the store since they do not conspire to boycott.
Prediction...within 3 months reg. gas will be near or past $4.00 and will not come back down. You know BP will have to make up for all of its losses. I can get to water, Mobile Bay, easily to fish or swim, but soon there will be no reason to go unless I want to collect some BP oil spillage or pick up dead fish.
I can totally relate, I boycott US made goods.
of my car six years ago and now I bike & take public transportation.
I miss those days.
Never owned a car. I won't ride buses with BP fuel? Hmmm.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
Gasoline is distributed as a commodity. The gas that you get from a shell station is just as likely to contain fuel that refined at a BP refinery, as a Shell refinery. While such motives are based on good intentions, they are also based on a complete misunderstanding of the energy infrastructure in the US.
You want to boycott? Grow a spine and change your lifestlye away from being car based, or buy an electric car and install solar panels on your house. Whats that you say? Its too 'expensive'? Well, dont you sound just like BP now...
Americans will get it right eventually, but they sure arent getting it right now.
prerequisite for buying an electric car?
to sit upright behind the wheel. ;~)
Because the spinal column is connected to the brain and the rest of the nervous system, which seems to be required in order to think through the ramifications of such a complex problem.
It doesn't take much complex thought to not research the infrastructure, and instead aim for the biggest target.
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Boring when someone refutes an argument competently, isn't it?
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Oil Companies have so many Contractural agreements it's as if they are actually one huge company.
The Exxon-Shell team, combining two of the world's biggest publicly listed oil companies, had been seen as the favorite to win the contract, ...
BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. took the best deal they could get in Iraq last year when they won the largest oil contracts..
An antitrust lawsuit filed against Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC claims the two oil giants are restricting the nation's supply of natural gas and keeping prices at record highs.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Fairbanks, says the two companies acted together to eliminate competition for the exploration, development and marketing of natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to U.S. markets.
Donaldd
I don't normally like Hugo Chavez, but I did love him one day back in 2006.
He came to the UN the day after W., "The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body during its annual meeting Tuesday. "And it smells of sulfur still today."
Ever since that day, I buy Citgo gas where I see it. Citgo only holds up one tin-pot dictator, the rest of the oil companies have all the real dangerous corporate Presidents/Dictator's.
is only accused of being a dictator because he took control of the oil companies to benefit the citizens. Why we don't do it here is beyond me.
Chavez is the democratically elected leader of his country.
The elections were monitored by respected international monitoring agencies and certified as fraud free.
No amount of US propaganda will change that fact.
"The revolution will not be Televised". It used to be available on Google. I own a copy.
Well, at least my name does ;)
around for the US elections of 2000 and '04. Maybe we wouldn't have had our own version of a tin-pot dictator for 8 years.
... at the invitation of the Federal government, it's just that some of the states in your country wouldn't let them in to observe and verify.
Wonder why that is...
It doesn't help that most of them monitoring US elections were also US NGO's, something that doesn't lend all that much credibility to any conclusion they might reach.
Companies exist to squeeze after last penny out of us, not assist us. What on earth are they thinking down there? Besides, Citgo has a monster sign outside Fenway.
If you think that taking over the oil companies is the only thing that Chavez has done, think again. The economy is in shambles, he has shut down opposition owned TV and radio stations, nationalized massive sectors of the economy without compensation, and arbitrarily forbid certain opponents from running for office. In the past few months he has jailed a former ally in the military, a judge, a former presidential candidate, and others for speaking out against him. I don't care what he said about GWB or what he did to the international oil companies. But you should care about what he is going to Venezuelans who oppose him.
That only hurts the owner of the Citgo station, who is most likely a local small businessman. If Citgo has gasoline to sell, they'll sell it to the next independent station down the road. And Citgo's share of the market is decreasing, because Venezuela cannot produce their OPEC share now due to mismanagement.
Start minimizing the use of fossil fuel.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
On April 2nd a brand new BP "mall" opened up directly on my route to work. Unlike any other station within ten miles of my daily travels, they feature E‑85 and Biodiesel. This is the first time since 2007 that E‑85 fuel has been available nearby. As much as I hate to purchase from BP, I will purchase midwest produced Ethanol wherever I can get it for use in my nine-year-old hybrid sedan.
Ethanol is no answer here. Corn is net energy negative. It works for Brazil because they use sugar cane, a net energy positive.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
he's talking about price.
As crude gets $3+ pricey, won't corn gas be below that price?
your feelings on the subject, it will have zero impact on BP. oil is a fungible good (one barrel of oil is exactly like any other barrel of oil), what BP doesn't sell directly, it will sell indirectly. the "no-name" gas you buy comes from whoever sells it lowest on the spot market, which includes BP.
The only gas I buy is fair trade.
What gas is fair trade?
The gas where the people picking the gas beans are paid a fair price for their efforts, and will be able to afford a standard of living just like ours.
And if I'm short, the fair trade station will take a chicken.
My comment was only partially snarky.
You say you only buy fair-trade gas. Just what gas do you buy? I'm sure all of us commenting here would like to know if there is a brand of gas that is even in the ballpark of fair-trade.
(And yes, I take public transportation quite a bit.)
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I tried that but every time I shoot it it explodes.
Does that mean you leave the oven door open? How do you capture the gas? Mylar balloons?
He must be using the range on top. Mylar isn't very biodegradable, why go through all the trouble to buy open range gas and not use green self-composting packaging!
Because they do not get their oil from the middle east. Now I have to make a choice that is not east. I've cut my driving to a tank full every two to three weeks. Now What?
Where do they get their oil? Norway? Venezuela?
A tank full once a month?
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
I read that BP lobbied Bush administration to allow them to bypass the safety valve regulation that is required by other European nations for offshore drilling. If true, this is akin to blaming the dog for vomiting on the rug after its owner let it eat 15 jelly donuts nonstop. Not much is being made about our complicity in this preventable disaster (spill not the explosion). If the lobby story is true, our government would like you to blame and boycott the evil BP while they go and sign away our future protections to the next highest bidder. Its akin to having you hate an entire religion instead of holding the previous administration accountable for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Not saying a boycott is bad idea, just saying its missing the point.
27 waivers since rig blew
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/07/93761/d...
You only buy your gas from one of the "good" oil companies?
Whether it makes a difference to the oil companies or not, it makes a difference to me. I haven't bought Exxon anything since the Valdez incident, and now I will not buy BP anything. Thanks for the heads-up about Arco, and Castrol.
I bought Citgo for awhile in 2006, but then got lured back to the low prices at Arco during the criminal manipulations of 2008. Looks like it's back to Citgo.
The people of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." J.K. Galbraith
...which is that they are not the only oil company that is bad for our environment and our economy. Exxon is not a saintly company, neither are the rest. This disaster could have happened to any oil drilling operation owned and/or operated by any of the oil firms.
Which is not to say that BP should be off the hook, but rather to say that we shouldn't be drilling like this in the first place.
It's the only thing the big boys understand. Boycotting is most effective when well organized and systemic. It's not enough to just boycott, it requires activism to get ten people you know to do the same thing and then getting those ten people to get ten more people to do it, too. Then you get the desired results. It may take weeks or months or even years... but eventually it economically pushes the target in the desired direction or over a cliff. Boycotting is the only real non violent way of getting the big boys to pay attention to something other than themselves. It's social engineering from the bottom up, not the top down. Voting with your wallet is how the corporations (they are people, too, right?) want to play the game, so let them have it. Pick a target (BP has earned that distinction). Then get to work - http://www.congress.org/news/2010/05/06/seven...
FOX cannot find advertisers for the Glenn Beck show in the UK?
Jeez, can they find any viewers? Who in the hell in the British Isles would want to watch that show on television?
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
The stuff that BP pulls out of the ground can wind up in an Exxon station. If you really want to boycott BP, ride your bike.
Exxon then?
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Exxactly.
Petroleum is a commodity resource, all of which will be purchased and used eventually. Therefore it makes no difference from whom you purchase it. Not purchasing it in the first place is only a slightly better solution.
Or, to put it a better way:
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-19/
We need clean energy and not oil.
get real, while it is admirable to go green, i will still go jump in the car to go to the grocery store, so will most other people.
the point is people before profits, for oil companies to develop the technology to safely procure the energy without destroying the planet we all depend on for life; this will not happen with the profit model, not in the cards, not until the economy is geared for human needs, not the needs of an economic model.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTlQU2Vel7o&fe...
Do not penalize the small business people and their employees who run franchised BP/ARCO stations. They are just trying to feed their families.
Yes, avoid BP, ARCO, and Castrol products. Ask who owns gas station and buy all the other stuff there that you can if they are locally owned. Buy your gasoline elsewhere.
I take public transportation, thanks.
Don't kid yourself that boycotting BP is solving anything. What, you think the other oil companies are any better? They just haven't had any disasters lately. Give 'em time and they'll catch up.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Gasoline accounts for only 20% of petroleum's uses. The other 80% is used for...well, just about everything you encounter in daily life, from the ink on printed pages to the water bottles you drink out of to the computer you're typing on now. So we can all stop congratulating ourselves on how we don't support BP.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
I've worked in oil & gas for half a decade. A boycott of BP, even if widespread, won't work for reasons similar to those outlined here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasou...
Every gallon of fuel at a retail outlet has already changed ownership probably a dozen or more times by the time you fill your tank. That's just how the industry works. I imagine a vertically integrated petroleum company like BP makes most of its margins in the upstream (pre-refinery) segment anyway.
The real solution is for the government to put the screws to BP - lift the liability cap, fines, sieze assets maybe. And of course, use less gasoline in the first place, take public transportation (I do).
I recently switched some of my electric supply to a clean source. Green Mountain Energy was one of the "clean" supplier choices..but a little research revealed that Green Energy was acquired by BP almost a decade ago. CEO Paul Thomas, who previously held executive positions at BP and Amoco is now a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2010 award in the central Texas region. Some serious Bush-era cronysim in the boardroom. Needless to say, I did not choose that company to supply my energy!
Americans as consumers are Gutless and Clueless.
I went past a BP.Gas station yesterday and it was packed
and the Gas station across the street had one car.
And anyone can, I'm sure, cut down on their driving. I have a bicycle that gets me most anywhere I need to be, and when it's really bad outside, there's subways. We have to redefine our cities, and our living that every citizen has these options.
Here's a link to a Young Turks sponsored BP Boycott site:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/boycott-bp-g...
Stormy clouds on the new Horizon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxZYG7cMpvk&fe...
News features say that the Deepwater Horizon wasn't BP's.
What's in a name? :
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/glob...
Whoever said BP owned the rig?? It belongs to a contractor called Transocean. I say "owns" because they still do until their insurance company pays them for it.
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