Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

Looking for some input from the incredibly helpful experts again (it's been a long time since I posted).

Have run out of gas, fighting with Fl*g*s to get a delivery, been a week since I ordered and it's not even scheduled in yet. But that's another story, and yes I did order before I ran out (just).

Anyway I've posted on here before about our tank siting. It's an underground tank that sits under the huge canopy of a 300yr old beech tree. Due to this, when we approached another supplier, they wouldn't take it on. Fl* admitted they put the tank in. The woman at Fl* I spoke to today is apparently going to talk to her manager about our case, as they have previously refused to take ownership of this issue.

In 2 weeks time, we are having 4 trees taken down - 2 dead and 2 diseased. Not the one above the tank. But this will leave us with a place at the end of our drive that I think will be suitable for a tank. The current tank is very close to our house (I guess the 2m requirement) and this possible site is a lot further, about 20m. So before I talk to Flo I'd like to gather my facts, and form some opinions too:

Is it ok to be alongside the drive?
Does it matter how close to the road it is?
What about fences?
Who would be responsible for the piping up to the house? How would I find out the requirements? Could this pipe be driven over, notwithstanding it would be underground. This would include a 7.5 ton truck and sometimes a tractor.
Would an overground or underground tank be better? This position can't be seen from our house so spoiling our view not such an issue.
Who is responsible for either digging the hole for the tank or laying a foundation?
Our current underground one has a big issue with flooding in the turret. We've already had to replace the regulator once. We live in quite a wet area so does this point to an overground tank? Are there any pros and cons? I'd guess an overground would be cheaper in terms of groundworks?
Who is responsible for removing the old tank? And filling in the hole?

Any other experiences of getting a supplier to move the tank? And given we want to move away from Fl*, once we've got the trees removed, should we approach our supplier of choice about the new tank rather than Flo?

(PS - our current out of contract price with Fl*, for your records, is 55p. Not great, but better than the 73p they were going to charge us 2 years ago!)

Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance.

EDIT - just partially answered my own question. When we have the trees taken down, we won't be removing the roots. So because the potential site is essentially between the 2 trees (that won't be there any more) it will probably have to be overground as there will be too many tree roots underground. (These trees are also old beech trees - very sad to be losing them, but won't be sad to lose Fl*)

tiff456 wrote: »

Hi, I'm new to FLOGAS. ..... I'm stuffed

I live on a development where there is a bulk tank that supplies us all.

I am right in thinking there is no chance to ever leave flogas?

There are approx 50 houses and there's no chance on getting all of them to turn up to any meetings for on mass action.

Am I right in thinking if just 1 out of 50 stays with flogas we all must stay or is it based on majority? I assume if just one is in contract all 50 are actually locked in?

And secondly as I'm guessing we have zero power to leave, I'm assuming flogas can keep offering high prices with no worries!

.....We're being charged 207.9p per m3 + vat .....a standing charge of 13.6p per day....near Taunton, Somerset.

Welcome to the forum.

Metered estates are seen as cash cows by the big suppliers - which is why they put in the infrastructure for the developers.

Yes, each new owner or tenant signing up to the 2 yr supply contract resets the exclusivity deal.

You are paying 54ppl and £49.64 annual rent.

BUT all is not lost. A recent poster, routly, organised the owners on his/her 37 house estate to get a better deal from Flogas...and reports paying 41.5ppl here:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64336345&postcount=2201 Maybe send routly a personal message?

If you use the "Search this Thread" tool above the posts you'll find one or two others.

Good luck - and please keep us all posted. Very few estate dwellers post on this forum (and so far as I know there isn't another bulk LPG forum on the web).


PS thanks for the prices - really helps others!
..

Well done "The Gas man"


You should be a very popular man managing to get such a big drop in price.

I would like some input on this please.

I live on the Isle of Skye and my contract is due for renewal. There is very little competition here for the supply of LPG. My supplier is Calor Gas and I have had excellent service from them over the past 15 years. Prices have gone up and down over that period except for the last 3 years where it has remained static.

My current price is 55.40p per litre ex vat since 4 April 2011. Looking at the pricing graphs (thankyou HateLPG) the trend is going down and it would appear that I am paying a premium of around 10p per litre.

My delivery is done by a 20,000 litre tanker which incurs a 260 mile round trip, from a distribution depot, over 2 days. Calor use a telemetry system which enables them to maximise their drops, so I reckon each tanker will do around 12 drops over 2 days and for this they get extra revenue of 20,000 x 10p = £2,000.

Any thoughts?

Hi everybody, I'll try to outline what I did with my LPG bulk metered estate to get out of our contract.

We moved in to a new housing development in Perthshire, Scotland in December 2009 and like everybody else, signed up to use the shared bulk LPG supply from Calor Gas. At this stage I was, of course, under the impression that I HAD TO sign up for their terms and conditions, which included a two year supply contract and our price was stated as 42pence per litre plus standing charge.

Our estate was one which started being built in 2006 and because of the downturn in the economy, only around 28 of the total 54 houses were sold by the time we moved in. Unfortunately for us, we were hit by a horrific winter and we had to keep our heating on 24/7 to stave off the -20° external temperatures. We finally broke in to March and it was then we received our fist invoice for the sum of £641 for the first 10 weeks of supply. Having come from 4-bed semi which was served by natural gas and moving in to a 5-bed detached house with LPG, there was always going to be an increase, but this was huge! I contacted Calor and told them I was stunned at the cost and they said that’s the cost of LPG and to put down the phone and get over it. I bumped in to a few neighbours and they all complained about the house builders first, then it was complaints about Calor pricing and service, so that set the tone for me.

I had to leave the gas alone for a while due to work, but in March 2011 after notification of a second price rise to 49ppl, I returned my attentions to it. I contacted Calor and asked for an explanation to be told it was market forces. Thinking it would be fairly straightforward, I went off and contacted alternative suppliers who said they would supply our estate at 39ppl and 36.5ppl. I was, of course stunned, and went back to Calor who said they are plucking figures out of the sky because they know that we couldn’t get out of our contract with Calor. In the meantime houses were slowly being built and sold off, each time tying us in to new contracts. I sent a mail shot round the estate telling people not to sign up to a new contract and to come to me if they had any questions. I would go off to the new owners a couple of days after moving in and tell them not to sign any contracts.

In the meantime, after a few weeks of slowly getting further and further up the Calor management tree by effectively harassing their staff (!), I asked a director whether I could come together with neighbours and buy out our contracts, and received this response:

[FONT=&quot]“Thank you for your query. Currently Calor do not offer a buy out clause in the contract the both you and the residents have. I have briefly discussed this with a colleague, and will try to discuss this further with our legal team and senior sales manager. Please could I ask for your patience with replying to this specific part of your enquiry.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I would like to discuss the details from your below email in detail, perhaps best initially on the phone. However before our conversation it may help if you have obtained various quoted from a number of competitors. There are a number of points and therefore subsequent questions that will be pertinent to ask.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Calor will always try to remain as competitive as possible with its fellow suppliers. While we do not disclose any of our costings with our competitors, through my job role I am in a position to compare prices that Calor's competitors are offering Calor's customers and prices that these competitors are supplying their existing customers at. I would guess the prices that your be quoted will be around 39 to 41 ppl from my experience over the past 3 months. However, these will be introductory rates, and I would hypothesise that this supply rate would increase dramatically after any exclusivity period has expired. The reason for this is that from May - June 2010, our competitors were supplying their metered estates at 49 ppl and above. I have talked to customers who are currently being supplied at 58 ppl. I would suggest that these artificially low introductory offers are aimed at attracting new business, and the supplier would manage their margins by modifying their existing competitors price of off set this. Please see the below link detailing how competitors have increased their supply price by 15 ppl since January 2011 I would highlight the last 5 comments on this website.[/FONT]

I have had to remove the link as I am a new user?!

[FONT=&quot]While I understand that of the offers listed below includes a 2.5 ppl price increase capping clause, I would highly recommend viewing any relevant clauses that may also apply to this on the terms and conditions. The reason for this is that Calor are the only LPG supplier with a similar clause (all be it 3.5 ppl per six months), but has not additional clause allowing (with justification) Calor increasing our price by above 3.5 ppl without allowing you to switch.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Below are extracts from a company that offers existing Calor customers a 2.5 ppl capping clause if they switch (I do not believe their existing customers have this in their contracts.[/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]5.4 Following expiry of the offer price, or where no offer price is specified and a variable price is in effect, X shall be entitled to increase the prevailing price from time to time upon notification to the buyer up to a maximum of 2.5 ppl (exclusive of VAT...) (the "Maximum Price Increase"). subject to clause 5.6, if X increases the price by any value that exceeds the Maximum Price Increase, the buyer may within 14 days of receiving notice of the relevant price increase, terminate the Agreement by giving 42 days' prior written notice to X. If the buyer does not give notice to terminate within such 14 day period, the Buyer shall be deemed to have accepted the price increase [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]5.6 The Buyer will not be entitled to terminate the agreement under clause 5.4 if the value exceeding maximum Price Increase reflects an equivalent increase in the cost of LPG Gas as measured by reference to the propane market. The market benchmark used will be the spot rate for large propane cargos shipped to North West Europe. To rely on this clause 5.6 B Will notify the buyer of the current benchmark rate and the historic benchmark rate at the time X's standard retail price was last changed so as to demonstrate that the value exceeding the Maximum Price increase is no higher than the increase in the cost of LPG Gas.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Using clause 5.6 of the above extract, this LPG supplier could have increased your supply rates by a considerable value during the past two winters. I would highlight that from August 2009 to January 2010 the wholesale cost of LPG increase by 100%. I also understand that other suppliers offering similar price capping clauses have a similar clause relating to the cost of Oil prices. Following these clauses, the above supplier would be able to increase above the 2.5 ppl price clause, without breaking any exclusivity agreement. The above terms and conditions were available from the suppliers web site.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Currently the LPG market has experienced two winters where the wholesale cost of LPG has been at unprecedented highs. Normally during the winter these prices are dramatically higher than during the summer, allowing Calor to buy LPG in bulk and store this cheaper LPG gas to be used at times when the wholesale cost of LPG. in light of recent events, Calor is still paying peak winter rates, and this has lead to the recent price increase. As a result, of this your price, while higher than December 2009, in fact remaines very competative compared to the LPG prisinc in the UK.”[/FONT]

Besides the spelling mistakes, I could see that they held me/us over a barrel, but was glad that I actually had opened up a dialogue. I continued to press and after a few weeks I sent this email:

“[FONT=&quot]Can you please advise where you are in relation to buying out the contracts for customers still in contract? I have also now emailed the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) which opened up the bulk LPG market in order to bring competition in to the market and help keep payments down. The reason I emailed them was because I felt it unfair that as we are owners in a new housing development which is still not complete, we will not be in a position in which all residents are out of contract until 2 years after the final house has been bought. This will therefore mean that the original buyers will have been in contract for 4 years to date, with the possibility of a further 3 years until the expiry of the final purchaser's contract. This will put homeowners in our estate at a disadvantage and effectively allow your company to charge whatever it feels fit until then, with consideration to the cap mentioned below. I will forward you an email which I have reveived from "J-Gas" which has provisionally quoted a price of 39p per litre, plus £12.00 per quarter for meter standing charge. Flogas have indicated that they will be in a position to beat this price, albeit by only a small amount, but have requested confirmation that we will be able to terminate the contact we currently have with your company. This would represent a saving to us of 20.4%, not insignificant I am sure you will agree. With around 41 homes currently owned and a further 6 homes due to be transferred withing 5 weeks this will represent a total composite saving in excess of £16,000 based on an average bill of £1400 per home per year!”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]After 2 months, I finally received a letter from Calor’s legal team, as follows:[/FONT]

“[FONT=&quot]Further to your email of 23 April, I can confirm that the suggestion contained in your email has been carefully considered here.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]However, after careful consideration, we regret we are unable to agree to your request to ‘buy out’ Calor’s commercial interest in the supply to a particular metered estate for a number of reasons.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Firstly, as you are aware, the Competition Commission has only recently considered the issue of LPG supply to metered estates and subsequently issued its Metered Estates Order which took effect on October 2009. Calor fully complies with the provisions of this Order. We cannot see how your proposal could be made to operate in a consistent manner with the Order either by way of commercial reality or by way of timing. We do not believe in any case that it would be practical to apply a type of buy-out formula to each individual resident on the estate and indeed out current terms and conditions do not permit this.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]However, we note that your particular concern is pricing and we would like to draw your attention to general condition 8.1.5 of your standard Calor metered estate contract (I enclose a further copy for ease of reference) which deals with this situation of price rises and provides that in the event of a rise exceeding the rate of 3.5 pence per litre in any period of 6 months the customer has the right to terminate the contract. Where such circumstances arise, and provided that all the customers on the estate wish to switch, they could all terminate their contract under that clause at the same time and switch to another supplier even though some residents may be part way through a 2 year minimum period.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Finally, I would also point out that the price which we charge for gas on metered estates is fixed in accordance with national tariffs and is therefore subject to competitive pressure from the market in general. In other words, if we were to fix the price unreasonably high, switching pressures from other metered estates (to date some 4 estates have switch from Calor to other suppliers or are in the process of doing so, whilst 4 estates have switched the other way) means that our national tariff prices have to bear in mind such competitive pressures. This was, we believe, the intention of the Competition Commission when they set up their arrangements.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Things then went back and forth between them and I for what seemed like an eternity and so I went off and pressed the OFT harder suggesting that we were being faced with unfair terms. I also caught a glimpse of this forum and used the information on it to build up a picture of costs to Calor and I had the final straw when in May 2012 we were told of another price rise up to a proposed 54.5ppl. I called Calor pretending to be a new customer with my own tank and asked for an indicative price and was quoted 48ppl for a 12 month fixed period. I was stunned by this, but something happened which finally tipped the balance my way. At the same time, a neighbour received a contract renewal offering them a slight discount for locking in for a further period and I finally had some ammunition. One key feature of bulk metering is that all customers are charged the same price, and the offer of a discount meant that there would have been a differential between some customers. I went back to the OFT and Energywatch copying Calor in to all communications to show that I wouldn’t let things drop and I sent a letter to Calor head office with many of the graphs from this forum, but with a copy of the Calor contract this time showing that there would be a price drop for the customer choosing to sign the new contract. I said that I would write to Downing Street and Watchdog if I didn’t receive a satisfactory response, and I was granted a meeting with a couple of Calor representatives a couple weeks following this at my home. I was expecting it to be a real struggle and started off the meet all guns blazing with a Powerpoint presentation, charts, and general hostility. After around 10 minutes they’d seen enough and they came up with a proposal, which they subsequently put in writing on 26/10/12:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“[/FONT]Thank you for your valued time on my recent visit with my salesman __________, to discuss the group price for the ________Estate.
1) As discussed, the price will be 43.9ppl and will take effect from the last meter read. This price will be held until the end of September 2013, with a cap on rises being held at 3.5ppl in any 6 months.
2) The last contract sees the estate coming out of contract on 27th August 2014. Any new contracts signed with existing or new residents will have a contract end date of 27th August 2014, irrespective of when these are signed.
3) _________ has left a number of calling cards and any new residents should contact him directly to ensure point number 2 above is adhered to.
4) I have spoken with our engineers Calorforce and they would be willing to offer a 50% discount on the Calorserve product, levels 2 & 3. Their call out commitment is within 1 working day and this is all year round. I have enclosed a marketing flier, which explains the cover and costs.”
You will also notice a maintenance contract offer they put forward when I mentioned how disappointed I was with my Homecare agreement with British Gas. They were able to offer this because our houses and therefore boilers were only a few years old at the maximum.
We have had a couple of meetings since and the pricing has been as follows to our entire estate:
Dec 2009 – 42.0ppl
Jul 2010 – 45.5ppl
Apr 2011 – 49.0ppl
Oct 2011 – 51.0ppl
Jul 2012 – Proposed increase to 54.5ppl, but instead dropped to 43.9ppl following meeting
Aug 2013 – Proposed price remains static at 43.9ppl, but drop negotiated to 42ppl based on updated charts and pricing as mentioned on this forum.

We are in a position that we will be free to look for alternative suppliers to take over the supply of our LPG gas from the end of August, and I look forward to getting pricing back from the competition to make sure that we will be competitive with whatever we go with.

Even in December last year, a house sale went through and my new neighbour received a contract through the post, but after checking [again] that we would not be affected by an increase in the contract term for the whole estate, it was confirmed that the August 2014 date would stand.

They have never admitted it, but I am assuming that we managed to do this because of a technicality. I will say that the OFT and Energywatch were of no help at all, usually not even replying to my letters, but in the end I am delighted with how things panned out. I guess I could have pressed harder and had the contract quashed under a technicality, but at the time I was (and continue to be) more than happy with the agreement that was made. The logistics of getting 50+ households to agree to switching suppliers was not something I wanted to get involved in at the time, and the price and terms were acceptable. I sent my kids round to the other 53 houses affected by the news, but was generally underwhelmed by the appreciation. I received only 11 emails thanking me for my efforts plus a bottle of wine, but I guess the self-satisfaction and £300 per year I have managed to save myself is the most gratifying!

I hope this helps some others who are being held ransom by this crazy system, but if I have missed anything please let me know and I will post more details on this forum, assuming I haven’t overloaded the servers with this entry!