Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

drfrot

Happy New Year from Countrywide!

It's the beginning of the month, so that must mean.... a PRICE RISE!!

Yup, it's gone up another 3.9p just four weeks after the last rise, so my rate now stands at en eye watering 58.0 ppl!!

Here are the recap stats:

Jun 09 (swapped to Countrywide): 33.0 (with a £12.50 + VAT quarterly rental fee)

5 months later... November 09: PRICE RISE. Up 3.9p to 36.9 ppl
2 months later... January 10: PRICE RISE. Up 1.5p to 38.4 ppl
2 months later... March 10: PRICE RISE. Up 1.8p to 40.2 ppl
7 months later... October 10: PRICE RISE. Up 3.5p to 43.7 ppl
1 month later... November 10: PRICE RISE. Up 5.5p to 49.2 ppl
3 WEEKS later... December 10: PRICE RISE. Up 4.9p to 54.1 ppl
1 month later... January 11: PRICE RISE. Up 3.9p to 58.0 ppl

Back to rubbing Vicks all over me again....

G

Speakeasy_2

Brandeberryj. I did not say where I got figures about the heat produced by lpg compared to oil. When I mentioned you it was about part of your quote from lpg-solutions:

Although oil burns slightly more efficiently than LPG

I had heard that it was the other way round, lpg burning more efficiently than oil but I don't know what is correct. With regard to the mathematics of the relative costs to produce the same heat, you are of course correct. To be honest I did not give the exact mathematics a lot of thought.

With the unknown variables, it does not make a lot of difference whether it is lpg at 70p and oil at 91p or lpg at 70p and oil at 100p.

By the way cheer up. Being a user of lpg seems to be getting you down.

Speakeasy_2

Sorry to labour this point and if it has been brought up before. Six houses were built near to me. Oil heating was installed. This is only one example but it might be that oil is chosen for new builds just now over LPG.

LPG needing to be around 30% cheaper than oil for there to be a level playing field, you would think that there is some incentive for the LPG suppliers to keep the price down to make it more attractive to install LPG and expand the business. Or maybe they are happy for customers to be ignorant of this differential?

SD-253

Speakeasy wrote: »

Brandeberryj.

With the unknown variables, it does not make a lot of difference whether it is lpg at 70p and oil at 91p or lpg at 70p and oil at 100p.


Although oil burns slightly more efficiently than LPG

I had heard that it was the other way round, lpg burning more efficiently than oil

By the way cheer up. Being a user of lpg seems to be getting you down
With the unknown variables, it does not make a lot of difference whether it is lpg at 70p and oil at 91p or lpg at 70p and oil at 100p.

With the unknown variables, it does not make a lot of difference whether it is lpg at 70p and oil at 91p or lpg at 70p and oil at 100p.
What I was saying, and you should have grasped it, is that 30% less is not the same as 30% more and I think you will find it does make a difference IE 9% and there are not a lot of variables that cannot be found out easily. The only real variable is the price of oil and LPG which like all fuels varies.
The cost of a tank
The cost of a boiler
The cost of fitting
All are easy to find out for each fuel. Thereafter it is silmply maths.

Although oil burns slightly more efficiently than LPG
I think we can say with absolute certainly that this is correct as it comes from LPG site and they would hardly say that oil is more efficient than LPG. Of course what this actually means is that an oil boiler is more efficient than a gas boiler IE it is possible for oil boilers to be 91% efficient while an LPG boiler can be 90% efficient.

By the way cheer up. Being a user of lpg seems to be getting you down.
Is it? I am paying at most 48p a liter (maybe only 43p) and I have used 128 liters (the dial says the tank is 79% full from 87% 1600 liter tank) over the last 13 months. This is due to a free supply of wood, which no doubt I will not get forever but till then I am not likely to be down. I am to be put it mildly overly happy and so are the pub landlords who benefit in-kind!!!!

SD-253

I am not at all happy with these new contracts that LPG companies are giving out. Previously they raised prices by exactly the same amount for everyone although the start price may be different the rise would be the same. Now with people having different contracts they may be able to raise the prices by different amounts.
An example lets say (as I have read someone has) you have a contract where they cannot raise the price by more than 3p in any 6 month period they could be raising the price by different amounts for different people/contracts Furthermore let’s say the LPG wholesale price goes through the roof, the effect would be one of 2 things or even both.
A they have to make a profit so those who are on one contract may end up paying for others.
B Companies could go bankrupt simply because the contracts they have given out will not allow them to make a profit. Resulting in less competition, not a good thing.
c both the latter could happen.

Know no doubt someone is going to say this couldn't happen. Companies (bankruptcy) have often made mistakes like this and been caught our for example my daughter is paying 2.5% for her variable rate mortgage (it is tied to base rates) because the bank/building society did not think that it was possible for rates rates to go down to 0.5%. I wonder if some of them would have gone or been close to bankruptcy if everyone had a 2.5% mortgage??

I think that price increase relative to wholesale prices would be best for all parties????

Speakeasy_2

Must admit I have not seen these new contracts. I was offered a contract a couple of months ago and if they went above the 3p in 6 months, it just meant that you could break the contract. You therefore had to pay the increase or find someone else.

Speakeasy_2

Brandeberryj. Surprisingly, I missed all that stuff you have in red typing again. Good to hear you are happy enough to go to the pub. I was beginning to think that you were too tight to buy a pint.

Speakeasy_2

Came across this some time ago. Difficult to know what to believe these days and what to do for the best. Our ancestors must have been an unhealthy lot. I have not got round to reading it in detail:

burningissues.org (I am not allowed to put in links)

A lot of us burn wood as a backup including potentially me (open fire).

Janners

Hello all, I'm currently out of contract, was with Shell and was looking to move to Flogas but Flogas have messed me about since mid December claiming to have sent the paperwork out only for me not to receive it and now they won't honour the 6 month fixed rate they originally quoted me as the Director says from January they're refusing to offer fixed rate deals (not that it means much it seems having found this very informative thread).

Having read the issues re: Flogas, I feel I'm now back at square one and will ring around local/national suppliers in the morning to see what the status is. I'm now off to start reading this thread from the beginning, I may be some time

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far :beer:

LittleVermin

Janners wrote: »

was looking to move to Flogas but Flogas have messed me about since mid December

Having read the issues re: Flogas, I feel I'm now back at square one and will ring around local/national suppliers in the morning to see what the status is.

I'm now off to start reading this thread from the beginning, I may be some time

Welcome to the forum, Janners!

Flogas's Christmas present to you was messing you about so you haven't signed a contract with them! A narrow escape .. unless, of course, they've changed their contracts to include a maximum rate of price rise.

I guess you've got a list of all your potential suppliers from putting your post code into http://www.uklpg.org/supplier-search/

When you speak to them the critical points are:
1. initial price
2. how long is this intitial price guaranteed for (i.e. 3 months, 6 months, 2 fills, ..)
3. maximum rate of rise (per 3 or 6 months, probably) before you can leave the contract (but you'll still need to give notice).
4. tank rental (usually £50-60 or so a year - but occasionally much higher figures have appeared on this forum).

Anything else is probably irrelevant (loyalty bonuses, etc, uplift charges).

If your tank is old (c. 20 years) some companies might not choose to buy it.

Have you considered buying the tank off Shell?

PS Glad you've found the forum useful. You say you are going to read the thread from the beginning (and you may take some time - ARE YOU A SLOW READER? - sorry, couldn't resist that) ... maybe you'd like to make an annotated list of the useful posts for other newbies. That would be your good deed for the [STRIKE]day[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]week[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]month[/STRIKE] year!

PPS What was the last price you paid Shell, please?