will this work?

I just got this in an email. Will it work?

THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON.

A retired Coca Cola executive sent this. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton.

If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day” campaign that was going around last April or May!
It's worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer, and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.19 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace, not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.
The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas!

And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

Its a GREAT idea, except you don't know who refines your fuel.

This falls under the heading of a "Viral Email" it is designed to clog the internet with junk emails, it falls in the same boat as Microsoft is tracking this email and paying .10 for every time you forward it.

Just because an email is "viral" doesn't mean it's evil and "designed to clog the internet with junk emails." Viral marketing has been around for a long time. From Wikipedia:

Virality is a component of word-of-mouth programs focused on creating awareness about a product offering, service or concept. It emphasizes building awareness through the rapid distribution of a related idea or brand.

Back to the topic - Will a year-long boycott of Exxon and Mobil work?

kasey wrote:

Just because an email is "viral" doesn't mean it's evil and "designed to clog the internet with junk emails." Viral marketing has been around for a long time. From Wikipedia:

Virality is a component of word-of-mouth programs focused on creating awareness about a product offering, service or concept. It emphasizes building awareness through the rapid distribution of a related idea or brand.

Back to the topic - Will a year-long boycott of Exxon and Mobil work?

Nope!

nitromaxx98 wrote:

kasey wrote:

Back to the topic - Will a year-long boycott of Exxon and Mobil work?

Nope!

You stated previously that it's a great idea, except we don't know who refines the fuel. Is there a way to know who refines fuel for particular companies?

Not without alot of research. It passes down the line many times.

Follow the trucks.

Justoo wrote:

Follow the trucks.

What happened to the truck strike that was supposed to be today? Wasn't there supposed to be one?

yeah, I saw on the news tonite that the strike is underway.....we'll see what happens as it goes on

Consumer's Guide to Gasoline

This Consumer's Guide to Gasoline isn't strictly about which gasoline companies use which refineries, but it does provide some of that info if you look for it. It is a place to start.

Some, maybe many, bigger gasoline retailers have their own refineries. Does this mean these retailers don't obtain gasoline that comes from competitors' refineries? I don't know, but it seems unlikely they would do that. There's a lot of information in this file and I've copied just a little bit below:

This guide focuses on war and peace and especially on the Middle East. The basic
criteria are the degree to which an oil company is involved in trying to profit from Iraqi
and Middle East “war oil” 1 and by selling petroleum products to the Pentagon.

Less Harmful – Relatively Speaking
Citgo
Sunoco
Hess
Flying J
Murphy
Gulf
Sinclair

More Harmful – Avoid When Possible
ExxonMobil
Shell
BP
Chevron
Valero
ConocoPhillips
Getty/Lukoil
Marathon
Tesoro

Sunoco is a gasoline refiner and marketer that appears to do little or no business with the
Pentagon and has no direct involvement with Iraqi oil interests. Sunoco does not import
oil from the Persian Gulf. Sunoco uses ethanol throughout its system. Ethanol reduces
dependency on foreign oil but also presents concerns in terms of pollution and displacing
food production and requiring high energy inputs for production.

Hess Oil has 1,350 retail stations in 14 states on the eastern seaboard, from
Massachusetts to Florida. Hess is involved in exploration, production and refining and is
in joint venture with Venezuela’s state oil company to provide a portion of Hess’ refined
oil products. Hess’ oil is imported from countries outside the Middle East. Hess’
website says that its gasoline is less polluting than that of competitors. Hess has no sales
to the Pentagon.

Flying J, which operates the largest chain of truck stops in the U.S., has
256 travel plazas and fuel stops in 42 states and six Canadian provinces. Another 30
facilities are being built or planned.
Flying J has refineries in Utah and California, processing crude oil from the U.S. and
Canada. It has no imports from the Persian Gulf. Flying J has no sales to the Pentagon.
Flying J operates some plazas that sell Shell products. Flying J and Shell are planning a
joint venture in Canada that will include construction of 15 new travel plazas that will
sell Shell products.

Murphy Oil operates 1,000 Murphy USA gas stations in the Midwest
and South, including Texas and Arkansas, many in the parking lots of Wal-Mart stores.
The company has refineries in Louisiana and Wisconsin, processing oil from Canada,
Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia and also from Ecuador, Malaysia, Mexico and
the North Sea. Murphy has no sales to the Pentagon.

Sinclair has 2,607 stations in 20 states concentrated in the Midwest and
West. Sinclair imports its oil from Canada and uses no Persian Gulf oil. It has refineries
in Wyoming and Oklahoma.

I think it's unlikely that a major retail gasoline company that has its own gas stations AND refineries would purchase its gasoline from a competing refinery. LukeTHr posted this link on another topic - it is a ranking of U.S. refineries.

It doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to do a long-term boycott of Exxon/Mobile retail gasoline stations AND refineries. We would just need to purchase our gasoline from other companies that have both gas stations AND refineries :

Citgo
Sunoco
Chevron
BP
ConocoPhillips
Total
Valero
Shell
Cenex
etc...

Is my reasoning flawed? Can you think of a reason this wouldn't work?

my opinion is the onlyone that doing this will hurt is the gas stations themself, the big guys won't feel a thing considering that the gas is already paid for. The wife's former boss' are GREAT exceptional people who have to pay SO MUCH a galon in order for them to even get a profit HOWEVER small they have to raise prices. Furthermore how does this work exactly....is anyone even considering the family owned and operated gas stations?? I know people are beginning to struggle but how many of us on here own our own businesses and feel the affects like the other small businesses i think that given the right idea AND strategy this works but i feel that MORE consideration needs shown for "the little guys" as they are called. but generaly the gas staions sell gas just a few cents higher then what they purchase it for when the price of gas remains steady, but when the gas continualy rises in price like it has been they charge what they are told to charge by their gas broker so they can afford the next shipment of gas. And with small gas stations it is not easy to afford say a $30,000 shipment or delivery of fuel twice a week depending on how big the underground tanks are. And it is not uncommon for gas stations to have a running tab with the fuel brokers. I know i would love to pay say .89 cents a gallon again but I dont necassarily believe that all gas stations are in it for the money especially when it comes to gas and I think i am fair in saying that the little guys have to survive too and DO NOT like charging that much a gallon.