Mike,

Thanks for the details...

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:00:15 -0000, Michael Rigby-Jones wrote:

> 2007 fuel duty (as of 1 October 2007) in the United Kingdom is:
> =

>     * 50.35 pence per litre for ultra-low sulphur unleaded petrol/diesel
>     * 53.65 pence per litre for conventional unleaded petrol
>     * 56.94 pence per litre for conventional diesel
>     * 30.35 pence per litre for bio-diesel and bio ethanol
>     * 16.49 pence per kg for gas other than natural gas (LPG)
>     * 13.70 pence per kg for natural gas used as road fuel.
>     * 9.69 pence per litre for rebated gas oil (red diesel)
>     * 9.29 pence per litre for rebated fuel oil

Interesting - the duty on Diesel is more than Petrol - I didn't know that!

Notice that the duties on the liquified gasses are per kg, and assuming the=
y are lighter than water (I believe they are, for example petrol has a Spec=
ific Gravity of =

about 0.8, I think) then the duty is possibly about 25% higher than it appe=
ars.

What's the difference between the last two?  I'd have thought that red dies=
el would be fuel oil rather than gas oil?  I always thought there was *no* =
duty on red =

diesel - funny how these myths arise!  :-)  Is there such as thing as "red"=
 petrol, I wonder?  It seems a right pain to pay duty for something that is=
n't going to be =

used in a vehicle, such as in garden equipment (mowers, strimmers, chainsaw=
s) or in generators.  Cheap petrol generators are easy to find, but diesel =
ones seem to =

be about three times the price, so to get one to use red diesel would mean =
a lot of use before it pays for the difference in the running costs.  I cal=
culated the cost =

of using a small (2kW) petrol generator as about UK=A31 per kWh, and this w=
as some time ago and as we can see, about 2/3rds of this is duty that isn't=
 due!  :-)

Cheers,



Howard Winter
St.Albans, England



-- =

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