[theo_luddite]

The answer really is quite simple, the price of oil/gas and the hydrocarbons that are made from them, whether fuel, lubricants or otherwise don't need to be as high in price as they are. They cost no more to get out of the ground or to refine them today than they did 5 years ago.

They cost more to deliver by road/ship because these same companies have put their own fuel prices up, conveniently using Russia/Ukraine as a shield for their greedy shenanigans when they had been merrily raising prices anyway for 2 or 3 years. That just helped them accelerate what was coming. How many UK energy suppliers went bust before Putin invaded Ukraine last year? I went through at least 4 changes of supplier since August 2019 and I've been stuck with the latest one since September 2021.

They don't cost anymore to send down a big fat long pipeline than they did 5 years ago and that is how they are most efficiently moved.

The other thing with "big oil" is they get rich both ways. If crude goes up, they win selling crude to refineries. Then they put the price up at their blended lubes and other chemicals derived from crude in their own plants. Their customers (some of whom are us) don't really have a choice since all the merger and acquisition/globalisation feeding frenzy of the last 20 years has more or less removed any competition. I'd hesitate to call it a cartel, but with so little competition, it's not far off.

All in all, these folks have their finger in the pie at every level. You might want to ask what industry, even if it's a very small niche corner of it - I've worked in for over 40 years? Every time the big boys cough, the little boys catch a cold and what is going on now is no different from the "manufactured" fuel crisis of the 70's and the subsequent overheating of the oil/gas prices 20-30 years ago.

Shell move their HQ from London to Amsterdam and back almost at the flick of a switch, depending on which is most tax efficient to them at the time.

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PS I agree with you on the BBC. Many friends, family and colleagues globally only get the BBC World News version, which is still highly respected, even if they do far more documentaries than news reporting minutes these days. They don't get the UK version, unless they erm, find an unofficial interweb feed (?), which is now a very sad mouth piece for Tory propaganda, with the occasional dissenting voice.

Hence, to keep up the illusion of impartiality, we will only get the World version too in the not too distant future, with occasional Tory approved local cheerleading stuff that still won't go out on the World feed. They've disguised that as cost savings due to freezing the licence fee. So we will now pay an exorbitant licence fee to receive next to no news about what is going on in our own country and parliament.

Then they wonder why we are globally being seen as "3rd world" and our human rights reputation is falling like a stone.
As for countries running like hell to do trade deals with us before we pull up the rest of the draw bridges ........ I'm expecting a big fat yawn from the good ole USofA again anytime soon.