Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

JerryW

mcmullank wrote: »

Agreed.

What a load of nonsense. I was in the position where I had a tank owned by Calor on my property for which I did not pay rent and did not have a contract. This isn't opinion, this is fact.
This is not only incorrect but completely misleading. At no point during a house purchase (certainly in Scotland) will the solicitor get involved in the LPG tank. Quite simply the seller's contract with the LPG supplier is not assignable.

Dunno about Scotland. But my solicitors certainly became involved in mine. I signed a contract with Calor and paid the vendor for the tank contents on completion.

McTank, if you want reasonable discussion please try to keep your own language moderate. I don't respond at all to invective

mcmullank

JerryW wrote: »

Dunno about Scotland. But my solicitors certainly became involved in mine. I signed a contract with Calor and paid the vendor for the tank contents on completion.

McTank, if you want reasonable discussion please try to keep your own language moderate. I don't respond at all to invective

If there is something wrong with my language then you should report the offending post.

UKGasMan

I will just say that if you move into a property and you therefore have no contract with a supplier, you can ask the existing tank owner to remove it, which they will have to do FOC. I have never been in a position whereby "ground rent" has had to be paid. If the person wishes to keep and use the vessel, they will need to either sign a contract with the existing supplier or use the transfer process to move to somebody else.


On a different topic, I have heard that Flogas have done an increase this week citing the following reasons:


An increase of 52% on the cost of product price in the past 3 months
The lowest $-£ exchange rate in 31 years
Increased fuel costs


I have heard increases ranging from 2.95 to 4.95 pence (dependent on customer's caps I assume). I would suggest that and Flogas customer on MSE looks at their contract and makes sure that their price remains within the contractual terms.

collectors

Hi, i just got an email from Flow gas saying my LPG will increase on the 1/1/2017 from 32p per Lt to 45p per Lt, this equates to an astronomical 33.7% hike.
Are other company's doing the same??
I still have 10 months left on my 2 year contract with Flo gas, so i must call them & see what they will charge to break it.

NOTE: I just call Flow gas & asked what would happen if i broke the contract & they said i cant as they took over the tank contract & only they can fill it for the 2 year period of the contract. So it looks like i am stuck with a 33.7% hike. Great!

AdrianC

collectors wrote: »

Hi, i just got an email from Flow gas saying my LPG will increase on the 1/1/2017 from 32p per Lt to 45p per Lt, this equates to an astronomical 33.7% hike.

I still have 10 months left on my 2 year contract with Flo gas

Doesn't that contract have a maximum rise clause?

leboof

Me Too, just posted elsewhere not noticing this post but...

Name and Shame: FLOGAS increasing my LPG price by 48%
Just received a letter from Flogas indicating they are putting up the cost of my gas by 48% on January 1st.

They get you into a 2 year contract then WHAM. Now then, will they top up my tank before then at the old price or will they not be able to visit my property before then? Is this legally enough notice?

Maybe some users out there could take this into consideration when they select gas supplier or committing to a new contract.

leboof

Incidentally, nowhere on my communication does it indicate what I was paying previously or by how much the increase was in ppl, they are being economical with the facts here in my opinion.

NeilJ66

collectors wrote: »

Hi, i just got an email from Flow gas saying my LPG will increase on the 1/1/2017 from 32p per Lt to 45p per Lt, this equates to an astronomical 33.7% hike.
Are other company's doing the same??
I still have 10 months left on my 2 year contract with Flo gas, so i must call them & see what they will charge to break it.

NOTE: I just call Flow gas & asked what would happen if i broke the contract & they said i cant as they took over the tank contract & only they can fill it for the 2 year period of the contract. So it looks like i am stuck with a 33.7% hike. Great!

Definitely check your contract. I just got a similar letter, which goes:


Dear Mr Neil Jackson,
We are writing to inform you that effective from 1st January 2017, your new price will be 39.5pence per litre.
We know that news of any price increase is unwelcome, and we’re sorry. However, there are a number of reasons we’ve had to make this adjustment to our prices.Firstly, the cost of LPG has increased by a significant 52 percent in the last three months. This, matched with close to the lowest pound to dollar exchange rate in 31 years, has led to a marked increase in the price we now pay for gas. What’s more, as you may have seen in the press recently, the cost of fuel has increased too, which is impacting on our delivery costs.
As a valued customer, we want you to know that we always continue to invest in new developments to ensure that you receive the very best customer service. We’ve listened to your feedback and as a result we’ve made some big changes to our website, making it quicker and simpler for you to manage your account online. If you haven’t already, sign up today at www.flogas.co.uk


Thank you for being a customer of Flogas Britain Limited.


I signed up 18 months ago at 36p / litre with a 3.5p cap in year 2. Guess what, they put it up by 3.5p in year 2! My contract, which I guess is pretty standard, refers to a maximum amount that the price can increased by in a 12 month period - they call it the Upper Annual Limit. Clause 8.4 of my contract says that if they seek to increase the price of LPG at a rate exceeding the Upper Annual Limit then I ' may, within two weeks of receiving notice of the price increase, terminate the Agreement by giving us not less than 42 days notice in writing (during which time the original pricing will apply).'
What does your contract say?


Regards


Neil

LittleVermin

"Time to make a bit more profit! Thank you!"

NeilJ66 wrote: »

Definitely check your contract. I just got a similar letter, which goes:

We know that news of any price increase is unwelcome, and we’re sorry. However, there are a number of reasons we’ve had to make this adjustment to our prices. Firstly, the cost of LPG has increased by a significant 52 percent in the last three months. This, matched with close to the lowest pound to dollar exchange rate in 31 years, has led to a marked increase in the price we now pay for gas. What’s more, as you may have seen in the press recently, the cost of fuel has increased too, which is impacting on our delivery costs.

As a valued customer, we want you to know ....


Thank you for being a customer of Flogas Britain Limited.

Can we check any of this (remembering that reliability of info from the suppliers is addressed in section 21 of the faqs about the domestic bulk LPG market here - and the redress is to contact Trading Standards, or maybe even the Competition & Markets Authority. Or, if you see the 'info' on a website, the Advertising Standards Authority)?

Well, the info about the US dollar - sterling exchange is correct (and of course convenient for the suppliers - the rate may soon bounce back to 1.5-1.6 dollars per £1) - see here for the rate going back to 1953. The rate now is back to the rate for a time in the mid-80s. The suppliers buy their LPG in dollars but we pay them for it in sterling.

How about the wholesale price of butane (the main component of LPG)? The Platts Index is subscription only - we want the North West Europe figures - and I cannot find a chart for the other index, ANSI (Argus North Sea Index) which HateLPG quotes for his useful charts. BUT here is the chart for propane for Texas for the last 5 years. You can see there's a ~30% rise from August (at 0.44) to October (0.57) but the price eased a bit in November. We would expect the price of LPG to rise as it is linked to the price of crude as a refinery by-product: OPEC recently agreed to reduce production to strengthen prices. We would also expect fuel for the delivery trucks to rise.

BUT are Flogas being opportunistic? "Let's raise the price to customers now while all these figures are in our favour?" Both Flogas and Calor make a virtue of their stable prices (which we know rarely go down! Both buy in advance and store large volumes...which is one reason why they can beat the best offer from independents. Another reason is all the folk and metered estates they are overcharging...). We know that when Woldlink was charging 20ppl to its customers Flogas (which delivered the stuff and did all the contracts, etc) were charging Woldlink 14ppl! [We know this because someone at Woldlink let the cat out of the bag to a forum user]. The Woldlink price for December is 25.95ppl, and the 6 monthly fix for the second part of this year was 27.85ppl. January's prices for Woldlink's tracker and 6 month fix will be interesting!

If any Flogas customer uses the info above to reduce the increase please let the forum know. We are treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark - by the suppliers.

[Thanks to bobmac62, UKGasMan, collectors, leboof, NeilJ66, Juliandicks and a pm writer for the info. It's particularly useful when people quote directly - letters, contracts, COP, etc....it lets a little more light in on the mushrooms!].

Happy Christmas! And if you are a Flogas customer you might want to order a top-up at the current price. You'll be using a lot of gas over Christmas and the New Year, right?
..

mcmullank

NeilJ66 wrote: »

I signed up 18 months ago at 36p / litre with a 3.5p cap in year 2. Guess what, they put it up by 3.5p in year 2! My contract, which I guess is pretty standard, refers to a maximum amount that the price can increased by in a 12 month period - they call it the Upper Annual Limit. Clause 8.4 of my contract says that if they seek to increase the price of LPG at a rate exceeding the Upper Annual Limit then I ' may, within two weeks of receiving notice of the price increase, terminate the Agreement by giving us not less than 42 days notice in writing (during which time the original pricing will apply).'
What does your contract say?


Regards


Neil

This is/was the normal language used in the contracts. Many people posted on here stating that their contract limited their rise to x or y pence per litre but I suspect that many misunderstood what their contract actually stated. I had previously asked for someone to post or PM their contract so that I could see the wording but as no-one obliged it wasn't possible. I expect that there will be many people that are now finding out the hard way that when an LPG company states "limited to" they mean that is the cut-off before someone can terminate the contract.

The problem with this is that it is likely to happen when other companies are also raising their prices and therefore does not provide the price protection that they expected. Unless they have in writing that there will be maximum increase then the contract wording is the only T & Cs that apply.

I have managed to circumvent a similar rise in the past (2008) when on a Calor contract due to their contract terms but I believe that they may have altered the wording since.