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Keep in mind that by boycotting BP, you are also hurting the often mom-n-pop retailers, who may have contracted with BP long before this spill.
I guess they should have chosen a better business partner. Almost every product is sold through a middleman who makes a profit on the sale. I just don't agree that one can't boycott a product because it also hurts the retailer. We can each freely choose what products to spend our money on and what to avoid.
Not sure of any formal boycott, but did note yesterday when I got gas in Durham on Miami and Slater that there were lines at the Shell Station, and NO business at the BP right across the street, with gas being the same price at both.
Used to live near Roanoke, VA, large gas storage facility nearby in little town called Montvale - there were dozens of huge gasoline storage tanks - fuel trucks from Ohio to NC and Ky to Tidewater VA "filled up" here - whats funny is that your local Sheetz or Kroger or Sams tanker is filling up the tanker with BP gas!! Your ToA and or Wawa, or Pilot truck is filling up with Exxon. Just forget about it - the poster who says you're boycotting the poor working slob who owns the station is correct
I guess they should have chosen a better business partner. Almost every product is sold through a middleman who makes a profit on the sale. I just don't agree that one can't boycott a product because it also hurts the retailer. We can each freely choose what products to spend our money on and what to avoid.
I have some knowledge of the petro industry. For the record, I am in favor of alternative energies, reduced carbon usage, and in general, I am not in favor of drilling all over the place, but that is not the topic of this thread, I just want to point out that I am not a Pro-oil guy.
That being said, a boycott on BP is not only ineffective, but it is impossible. Oil companies are segragated by law into three different units: Upstream (exploration and drilling, like the part of BP that we are all disgusted with), Downstream (refining) and distribution and marketing (pipelines, trucks, and to some extent, retail) According to anti-trust legislation, they are not the same company, and can not really talk to each other. So a boycott of a BP station is hurting a local business, who unfortunately chose a bad partner (in hindsight, mind you), but it has absolutely no effect on the part of the company that carelessly destroyed the gulf.
I know that you could make the argument that "since they buy BP gas, if everyone boycotted the local stations, then it would hurt the overall company and have en effect", but even that is not true.
Gas is a true commodity. I'll give you an example. Take the Alaska Pipeline, at pump-station #1. Pump-station #1 is inside the artic circle, and inaddition to functioning to pump the oil into the pipe toward Valdez, it is also the unit that serves to take oil off of the field. There are five companies that contribute oil to the pipeline, BP is one of them. Once the oil is in the pipe, you can't tell who's oil is who's. So when you boycott BP, you are only hurting them partly, and hurting all the other companies equally (actually, pro-rated to the extent that they contribute to the pipe.)
Another example. Pretty much ALL of the gas that is sold in our region comes in on the Dixie Pipeline. Remember after Katrina, the Dixie Pipeline was down for a while, and gas was scarce. It did not matter if it was BP, Exxon, or "bubba's filling station". Same gas.
A BP (or any other) refinery gets their raw product at commodity price, regardless of who drilled (produced) it, and in many cases, the oil they refine was not drilled by BP. In fact some companies (Valero, for example) refine but don't drill. Others (Occidental, for example) drill but don't refine.
So, if you really want to make a difference, then make a change in your life that results in less use of carbon based products (gas, oil, plastic, travel, fertilizers, commercially produced farm produce, rubber, etc. etc. etc.....)
I am not here to tell you what to do, or what is right, I'm just saying that in a commodity market such as oil, you can not really speak to one company with your dollars, you can only speak to the entire market. Boycotting a local station does little to hurt BP, and does much to hurt the local merchant, who was unfortunate enough to choose a company who would have a major accident in the future.
(FWIW: IMO BP has a really bad record. The gulf disaster, the AK leak disaster, and the Texas City explosion all in the last decade. Maybe I would have chosen a better partner)
Good luck with that. Boycotting BP is more than just the gas you fill up your car with. Their "product" finds its way into other items like plastics that pretty much everything we come into contact with is composed of in some form.
Also BP resells gas to other parties so if you might think that the "mom and pop" station down the road from you under a different non-BP name is "safe" to fuel at, their distributor could have a relationship with BP.
The only thing you can really do is make a conscious choice to not visit BP branded stations when possible and as Bmateo said, attempt to make your life more carbon neutral. Not extremely easy in our modern world. Other than that, you can't completely avoid BP products. They are the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world.
Wondering if people are thinking about or actively boycotting BP. I buy gas from Sams club.
No, that would not make any sense. There is lots of blame to go around, so targeting only one participant in this tragedy and hurting local businesses in the process is not the way to go.
I guess they should have chosen a better business partner. Almost every product is sold through a middleman who makes a profit on the sale. I just don't agree that one can't boycott a product because it also hurts the retailer. We can each freely choose what products to spend our money on and what to avoid.
Ok great no BP. No Citgo, How about shell Oil?? They are horrible in Nigeria, what does that leave you with?? Please, all the damn oil is from places that stink. We needed to dump oil back in the 1970s when the Saudis started the oil embargo and we all waited on gasoline lines for almost a year plus!!
But nope, Americans decided full sized Pick Up trucks and bad mileage SUVs were the next best thing to sliced bread.
We are all to blame!
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