Best price for heating oil?

home-heating-oil

benood wrote: »

I think that a significant reason that heating oil prices seem to be so volatile recently is to do with the fact that a couple of years ago the EU regulation specification for home heating oil kerosine changed - it used to be exactly the same as aviation jet kerosine and was made in really large quantities - now it has to be slightly lower in sulphur than jet and is made in smaller amounts leading to potential for supply disruption.

Can anyone confirm the theory?

No not really the same thing is about to happen to gas oil. Crude oil is refined and is broken down in a "cracker" to produce the various grades from the lightest lpg to everything else. So once a "recipe" is made it just "cracks on" with it.

The mad and variable pricing is down to greed and is an indication of what is going to happen when oil demand outstrips supply in the next few years on a global basis.

But back to now. Christmas came early for the heating oil industry after months or warm weather, even up to early November, oil consumers became a bit complacent so when the temperature dropped like a stone it was a massive wake-up call.

As demand increased so did pricing 1. to slow the orders down and 2. to make up for shortfalls in profits. Then of course the cold weather turned serous and the distribution network broke down from the refinery to the depots and then from the depots to the customer.

Result = chaos so to try and slow things down further pricing increases was used again and again. But people kept buying and some companies continue/d to ride the profit wave. The problem is that the greedy companies have no way of fulfilling orders so they are calling on the more cautious companies to fulfil their orders. By doing that it increases the price to greedy supplier who then pass that cost, again, on to the consumer.

My biggest worry is that we are expecting some pretty horrific weather over the weekend meaning that the supply chain will be disrupted again. The press and government are now all over the industry which is great news and we have already seen decreases in the top pricing down from £1.01 per litre to around 80ppl in the last 2 days...

hippey

Just for info - BBC Radio 4 are investiagting the LPG & Heating Oil issue on Monday on You and Yours at Midday. (Sorry if this has already been mentioned!!)

Laidbury

great thread.

i live in oxfordshire too...in a little rural village. we do not have mains drainage or gas in the village. one or two of the houses run storage heaters, but most of us are on oil.

i cannot afford to pay the current prices of oil. we will turn the system off in about 4 weeks and use our immersion, spare oil-filled radiator and super-ser gas heater. thank goodness for a multifuel burner in the lounge. the spare room will be shut up and we'll have 'bathroom nights' where we'll heat the room and all pile in one after the other. hehehe. also, out of necessity, we'll wear more clothes indoors instead of swanning around in long-sleeved t-shirts and the like.

i begrudge giving my money to these companies who, quite frankly, are ripping the a*** out of it.

anyhow...keep warm everyone. and merry christmas, whatever the weather.

suki1964

hippey wrote: »

Just for info - BBC Radio 4 are investiagting the LPG & Heating Oil issue on Monday on You and Yours at Midday. (Sorry if this has already been mentioned!!)

Article on BBC news NI - and we arent paying no where near as much as you lot other there so I guess its being picked up on slowly

benood

home-heating-oil wrote: »

No not really the same thing is about to happen to gas oil. Crude oil is refined and is broken down in a "cracker" to produce the various grades from the lightest lpg to everything else. So once a "recipe" is made it just "cracks on" with it.

The "Cracker" is used after initial distillation to break the really heavy bituminous oils into lighter and more valuable fractions like gasoline, kerosine, diesel I think. The cracker does not do anything about suplhur content - this is done in the desulphurisation unit. Perhaps the gas oil change you mention is increasing pressure on desulphurisation plants messing around with supply?

Obviously the bad weather is the main cause of price change but I still wonder if the specification change is making things worse still. It could be taken out of the equation possibly by allowing heating oil suppliers to take standard jet over this difficult period? One for radio 4 perhaps.

rhiwfield

I suspect what goes around comes around. A lot of people will remember this bout of profiteering and it will encourage the slow decline of oil fired heating systems. Anyone for ASHPs?

benood

Here's the detail on the changes to heating oil:

http://www.ukpia.com/Libraries/Download/UKPIA_Briefing_Paper_heating_oil_Winter_07-8_final_rev.sflb.ashx



[FONT=Arial,Arial]Consumer impacts [/FONT]
However, there are likely to be impacts upon distribution of heating oil in Southern England, possibly affecting consumers in areas of Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, North Somerset, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire, as a result of longer distribution distances.
This could increase the time delay between order and delivery from 2-3 days to one working week. Heating oil distributors are advising customers to build this extra time into their calculations when ordering fuel, particularly during cold weather.
December 2007

ICV

rhiwfield wrote: »

I suspect what goes around comes around. A lot of people will remember this bout of profiteering and it will encourage the slow decline of oil fired heating systems. Anyone for ASHPs?

Hi, What does ASHP mean ?

rhiwfield

ICV wrote: »

Hi, What does ASHP mean ?

Air source heat pumps, I'm currently getting quotes for one.

turnersfarm

anyone know if these people are still operating? Have paid online for a delivery of oil, but cannot contact them either by phone or email as they do not reply. Does anyone know if they are in business?