Best price for heating oil?

missmilly

home-heating-oil wrote: »

Total Butler are the cheapest around right now 61ppl earlier today..

I obtained an online quote from Total Butler this morning prior to placing my order with a local supplier, and the price quoted per litre for 900 litres was 71.5 inc vat....so certainly not the cheapest in my area.

Lotus-eater

Boilerjuice have joined the forum as a member on the 8-12-10 and sent me a very nice pm to say thanks for saying our service is good and asking me to leave feedback on their online page.

Funny thing is, I said their pricing chart is good, not anything else.

So BJ are observing this thread (but not very well), but not joining in yet.

home-heating-oil

smallblueplanet wrote: »

That's a sweeping statement with so many suppliers in the country and so many areas. I bought a while ago and TB weren't the cheapest then, but still there is always the opportunity to go back with a price quote and ask another supplier to beat or match it.

Obviously it would be good to collect as many additional quotes as possible which is why everyone is invited to add their data to the daily pricing post. It represents the prices that are available so if the lowest is 20ppl (those were the days) and the highest is 60ppl you can negotiate with your supplier to the lowest or reach a compromise between the two.

But I also quote the WIT oil price and Brent (being more relevant to us) so we should be looking at a few pence up on a rising market and a few pence down on a falling market. As I have said in previous posts large companies are cheaper on a day to day basis on a falling market as they live more hand to mouth and buy daily. Smaller companies are cheaper on a rising market as their stocks last longer.

Recently however the weather has made logistics the major factor. The heating oil suppliers are making up for lost margin throughout the year by charging more for their products now for a number of reasons:

1. To choke back orders by increasing prices to be less competitive or obtain a huge margin for the remaining stock they have. All heating oil suppliers must first reserve stock for contract customers i.e. top up schemes. The remaining stock can be sold to new customers who often get the best price during the year but suffer badly, price wise, when it gets cold! If you are going to play the cheapest price game then you need to do it during the quietest period i.e. summer. When stocks are limited new customers not only face higher prices but also run the real risk of not getting any product for weeks.

2. Make profit. Suppliers run at a loss / break even for around 6-8 months of the year but know that they will make a decent margin when the temperature drops. In quiet periods suppliers negotiate to the bone i.e. +/- 1-3ppl to win new customers and yes that does mean make a potential loss to get the business. Why? The same customer will need 1-2 additional deliveries within 12 months. Hence, at least one of those orders will be during a cold period when all suppliers are in "make margin" mode to claw back previous losses and make a profit. Nothing wrong in that assuming we want suppliers to stay in business.

3. Use third parties for deliveries. If company "A" has run out / low stock at a depot and company "B" has excess stock then company "B" will buy from company "A" on a margin plus deal. To make a decent margin company "B" then has to re-sell the product at the price paid plus a margin for themselves. This is when you see huge differences in prices as reported on this forum last week when there was a 50ish ppl gulf between 2 major suppliers on the same day.

2010 has already smashed a lot of records and the cold period is going to last through to mid Jan. Fortunately, like today, there are respites so stocks can be replenished, backlog orders can be normalised and pricing will be relaxed. But this winter is far from over and the pricing cycle we have just seen is likely to happen again over the next few weeks.

How do you stop this merry go round? Everyone choose a supplier and stick with them via a monthly payment plan and pay a price, throughout the year, that keeps your supplier in business. Will this ever happen? No. So what is my motivation? My answer below to your question.

Who are you affiliated with by the way?

Affiliated too? I have worked for the oil industry for around 30 years and for most of the majors in that time. Now though I am an seo director at Winning inch.. http://www.winninginch.co.uk. My motivation is to narrow the gulf in pricing. By publishing daily prices anyone interested can check to see if their quote is within bandwidth and negotiate to within it or even beat it. Anything outside of the bandwidth can be reported back by leaving a comment for inclusion.

I would like to see a large independent comparison website/s involved as this would be the ideal, trustworthy, place to compare prices. Unfortunately this would need all the suppliers to give their best price on that day. So this is highly unlikely to happen because contract customers, who pay on a yearly average price, would be able to see that the same product from the same supplier is cheaper. Reality is that all suppliers work in the same way for reasons given in 2 above but no one in the industry likes to mention the yearly average price

The so called "comparison sites" out there now are all affiliated and do not represent the market plus some are dodgy i.e. go locate. Hats off to Boiler Juice who are brilliant marketers and have used some good search engine marketing people. They appear everywhere via Google and the likes and have great marketing messaging but does this make them best? No! So I am taking on the challenge to balance the books via the internet because I am a consumer, I have the skills, understand the market and more importantly I have the desire.

home-heating-oil

missmilly wrote: »

I obtained an online quote from Total Butler this morning prior to placing my order with a local supplier, and the price quoted for 900 litres was 71.5 inc vat....so certainly not the cheapest in my area.

Strange I got 61.96ppl? as an on-line quote

missmilly

missmilly wrote: »

I obtained an online quote from Total Butler this morning prior to placing my order with a local supplier, and the price quoted per litre for 900 litres was 71.5 inc vat....so certainly not the cheapest in my area.

home-heating-oil wrote: »

Strange I got 61.96ppl? as an on-line quote

Maybe the price varies according to which region you are in?:(

home-heating-oil

missmilly wrote: »

Maybe the price varies according to which region you are in?:(

Yea that is true I had feedback yesterday that BJ in postcode area YO was at 95.85ppl whilst postocde GL was at 74ppl.. Seems a bit of post code lottery maybe the steep variance is because they use a 3rd party for that area? If BJ do it would be cheaper going direct to the local supplier as obviously BJ will add a margin.

What postcode area are you in?

missmilly

home-heating-oil wrote: »

Yea that is true I had feedback yesterday that BJ in postcode area YO was at 95.85ppl whilst postocde GL was at 74ppl.. Seems a bit of post code lottery maybe the steep variance is because they use a 3rd party for that area? If BJ do it would be cheaper going direct to the local supplier as obviously BJ will add a margin.

What postcode area are you in?

I'm in PE postcode.
BJ today quoting Supplier 1 @ .715ppl and Supplier 2 @ 92ppl
TB today quoting @ .714ppl
My local supplier is quoting today @ .654

HTH

bikerchris

This has been a very useful thread to read, so thank you!

I have just ordered my first ever oil, as I'm moving into new rented accommodation. I can't believe that (worst case), my CH/HW costs are going from £30 per month to almost £180*!!!

Although price is important to me normally, on this occasion I really have chosen the worst time (of the year) to move into a property that has oil. I noted on the boiler juice website, that this year the prices have soared from 40-45p average. Last December there was only a slight rise to 50p'ish, when I just paid around 70ppl!

I am going to recommend to the landlord that the existing gas main already installed (for just a cooker!), should be used for a condensing gas boiler. It would no doubt 1/4 the heating bill at the very least - of course it would cost him £1000's of pounds but hey, I'm not the one owning more than one house :-)

Rant over, sorry!

*£180 is based on the cost of 500L costing a total of £360. Estimating (and hoping) 8L are going to be used per day, therefore 500L will hopefully last 2 months. I do anticipate a massive reduction during the summer that may calm down the average heating cost. I'm in the TN2 postcode area (Near Tunbridge Wells, Kent)

rclough

I am absolutely gutted reading about go locate fuel. I paid 289 on 30th Nov for express delivery which should have been here on 6th or 7th December. I have contacted them several times to be told that my order has gone to the supplier so should be with me any time, I have just run out of oil so will have no heating or hot water with a child in the house, and no money to go elsewhere to get oil. I wish I had read these posts before I ordered, gutted

bikerchris

rclough wrote: »

I am absolutely gutted reading about go locate fuel. I paid 289 on 30th Nov for express delivery which should have been here on 6th or 7th December. I have contacted them several times to be told that my order has gone to the supplier so should be with me any time, I have just run out of oil so will have no heating or hot water with a child in the house, and no money to go elsewhere to get oil. I wish I had read these posts before I ordered, gutted

That's a terrible situation to be in. Just as a thought, I don't know your location, but in the South East there's a place in Uckfield that sells 20 Litre mini-barrels for £25. That is of course massively expensive, but if you have a similar place nearby it might help.

As you've ran the tank dry, you might want to keep an eye on usage once you do get some more oil. You may have sucked the dregs through the system and caused the boiler to work less efficiently once topped up.