Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

LittleVermin

Lister Gases bought by AvantiGas

AvantiGas Limited Acquires 100% Share of Lister Gases Limited

06 Jan 2016
AvantiGas are pleased to announce the conclusion of a deal through which it has acquired 100% share ownership of Lister Gases Limited, one of the largest privately owned independent propane distributor in the UK.

In the new partnership, Lister Gases Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of AvantiGas Limited, will continue to trade independently and under its current brand and out of the current facilities.

Neil Murphy, Managing Director AvantiGas

“We are extremely pleased with the conclusion of this strategically important deal for both companies. We see a very exciting future for both Lister Gases Limited and AvantiGas in this newly formed relationship. We have carefully chosen a new partner who we feel can add value to our company to enable our continued growth and development. We warmly welcome the Lister Gases Limited teams to the AvantiGas family!”

from http://www.avantigas.com/news/1/all/avanti-listers/

Does every cloud have a silver lining? NO! But if AvantiGas is your supplier you can now refer to Lister Gases's tracker price - currently 28.41 ppl - if you think you are paying too much.

The wonderful domestic bulk LPG 'market' splits ~50% Calor, ~30% Flogas, ~10% AvantiGas and the rest - ~10% - independents. {When I get up-to-date figures I'll edit these}.

Flogas bought BP's LPG operation in 2012 and renamed it MacGas, before dropping the separate name later. Flogas bought the distribution part of Bulk Gas UK last July. Flogas is owned by DCC which has bought up lots of heating oil companies which continue to trade under their previous names. Flogas is on record as saying the only way it'll grow its business is by acquisition. It has certainly made an offer for another independent. It seems you cannot get taken on by Woldlink if Flogas is already your supplier as Woldlink (?only) uses Flogas. Countrywide Farmers also has some form of tie-up with Flogas.

Calor owns Budget Gas, Budget-Gas and also West Wales Gas. I'm told that if you try to drive too hard a bargain with Calor you may get phoned by Budget!

J Gas, an independent based in Scotland, bought Lima Gas, based in Southampton, last year.
..

mcmullank

LittleVermin wrote: »

Flogas bought BP's LPG operation in 2012 and renamed it Mac Gas, before dropping the separate name later. Flogas is owned by DCC which has bought up lots of heating oil companies which continue to trade under their previous names. It seems you cannot get taken on by Woldlink if Flogas is already your supplier as Woldlink (?only) uses Flogas. Countrywide Farmers also has some form of tie-up with Flogas.

..

The Mac Gas name has not disappeared completely. Although the paperwork that I was provided with through Woldlink was for Flogas, the branding applied to the Tank was Mac Gas (with a reference to it being a Flogas company).

And, yes Woldlink only use Flogas.

J_B

LittleVermin wrote: »

... there has been an increase in switching between suppliers from around 0.5% at the time of the CC’s report in 2006 to 4.0% in 2013/14.
.

Theoretically, we could make another market investigation reference seeking an investigation of this issue but, given the relative success of the Order and ......

..

brilliant!
Their 'success' in measured by getting 4% of folks to change!!!!!! :mad:

mjs1986

Hi everyone

How does this sound as a deal?

£0.28p ppl fixed for 2 years, £60 standing charge and £300 free gas. Would it be better to find a supplier with a slightly higher PPL but only on a 12 month agreement as LPG will probably come down again in 12 months?
Cheers
M

Tinhat

That sounds like a great deal! Oil (and gas) prices are likely to rise in the future, according to the papers.

With the £300 free gas, surely it's a no brainier. Which company is offering the deal?

I'm currently with Limagas (now Jgas) on 28ppl variable, but was thinking of asking if they'd offer me a fix for a year or two.

LittleVermin

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/mar/14/lpg-suppliers-price-renewal-easy-switch#comment-70530798

- please register and add your experiences! The comments section is usually open for a few (three or four) days.

LittleVermin

FAQs on the regs for domestic bulk LPG are on-line at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/399517/LPG_FAQs.pdf

3 - How do I switch supplier? para 4

Your existing supplier is required to tell you about when and how you can switch supplier and to refer you to the contact details for the LPG industry trade association (UKLPG). This information should be provided with new contracts and all invoices.

Remember that not all suppliers are members of UKLPG - and you may get a better deal via a farmers' co-op such as Woldlink, Mole Valley Farmers, etc etc (often without needing to be a farmer, or even pay a fee to join the co-op).

The contact at the Competition and Markets Authority for LPG is given as Bob MacDowall - who is on leave this month so the contact is Sharon Dias - both of whom (as many members of this forum will know!) have dealt with domestic bulk LPG for several years. Their emails are given as [EMAIL="bob.macdowall@cma.gsi.gov.uk"]bob.macdowall@cma.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL] and [EMAIL="Sharon.Dias@cma.gsi.gov.uk"]Sharon.Dias@cma.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

longforgotten

Mentioning no names but I have seen invoices where a farmer who keeps chickens in 'chicken houses' pays 15p per litre + vat for LPG................and he's not a big shot business by any means !!!...........I expect he's in some kind of 'group' for with group buying power.

HateLPG

Latest prices, for March 2016.

Interesting to note that the Listers ANSI Tracker appears to have, err, stopped tracking during February!





Click Graph for larger version

As always, Hope these are of use.

Enjoy

:beer:

JNwornou

I'm on a metered estate of 63 properties in Northumberland (NE22). The existing two year contract had expired so the estate was free to switch. We were supplied by Flogas at 44.5p per litre. To be honest, dealing with the two major well known LPG suppliers (Calor and Flogas) was very difficult and draining (and it mirrored the experiences that other people have written about on this site); given that the estate was very large (over 60 properties), it was very frustrating that we weren't been given quotes that reflected the large amount of LPG that we would use (ie no bulk discount). The quotes received were around 30-33 pence per litre.
I asked Calor gas for a quote and they verbally said over the phone "low thirties per litre and this is non-negotiable". I was somewhat put out by the approach that they took. They said that they would do a site survey and provide me with a written quote but they did neither. They were extremely unhelpful.

We were all out of contract in Jan 2016; the entire estate had signed a supply agreement in Jan 2014 with Flogas. This has been arranged by the previous estate representative who subsequently moved off the estate. In the meantime, no one unwittingly signed a new contract (fortunately) and when I took on the position of estate representative in Oct 2015 (and started educating myself about metered estate agreements) I did my utmost to make sure that all of the residents knew not to sign anything from Flogas. I sent frequent emails around and put numerous posts up on the residents' website telling people not to sign anything.

I ended up as the estate representative by accident when I realised that we were paying 50% more for LPG on an estate of 63 properties than my father in law was paying for his single property. It nettled me so much that I then put in all the time and effort in research and also collecting all 63 signatures to enable the estate to switch.

There was no information at all on any of the bills from Flogas about how to switch suppliers. When I was trying to get information from Flogas about the estate (i.e. the number of properties supplied and the number of tanks on the estate) they initially ignored me. They then gave me massively inaccurate information (they told me that there were only 30 properties that were using LPG whereas there were over 60; this may sound strange but the estate was built with a mix of properties using LPG and properties on mains gas so it was hard to verify the figures initially). I sorted this out when I went around and collected everyone's signature to get authorisation to negotiate on their behalf with LPG suppliers.

Flogas recognised my position as the estate representative but their quotes for renewing the contract were not competitive at all (low thirties) and they were also just draining to deal with at every stage.

Everything changed when I asked for a quote from a small independent supplier (LPG Home Heat). They were honest, polite, easy to deal with and sincere. Their first quote was their best quote (there were no tiresome negotiations). It was over 60% cheaper than the nearest quote from a major supplier. It was 20p per litre including VAT with a capped increase of 2p every 6 months.
Once Flogas were contacted by the new supplier with the switching notice, they legally had 7 days to respond and they took 7 days to confirm that the estate was eligible to switch. Flogas then had a further 28 days to send paperwork to the new supplier and they took 24. Throughout this time, they were lowering their quotes but the prices they were coming back with were not competitive at all and their best was 23p per litre. They were also trying to insinuate that the new supplier had under bid massively and would not be able to sustain their price especially when the cost of the infrastructure had to be considered, so it would be best if I signed the paperwork and stayed with Flogas. Additionally they said that the negotiation of the price of transferral of the infrastructure could take many months to complete so it would be best if I stayed with Flogas. In reality, the negotiation about the infrastructure price between Flogas and LPG Home Heat took a few hours.
I was very unimpressed with the insinuations and disingenuous behaviour by Flogas throughout this phase. I was never in any danger of backing out of the agreement with LPG Home Heat as their rep (James) was the only person I'd met throughout the whole process who played with a straight bat, was very honest and didn't take me for a ride (despite my inexperience and naivety with the whole metered estate process). Flogas never got close to matching LPG Home Heat on price, but even if they had, I would not have signed with them as all the residents were sick and tired of having to deal with their poor customer service over the last few years, and were ready for a change.