Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

HateLPG · 16 January 2011 at 8:48PM

PaulBassi wrote: »

I am open to suggestions about how to improve and develop the site so that it is as useful as possible for LPG users.

Paul,

Please don't misunderstand me here, I am NOT trying to shoot down your idea - I think a bulk LPG comparision site is a TERRIFIC idea, and all credit for making a start - but there are a couple of things here that deeply concern me:

To put such a site together, and make it work, you have to understand how the bulk LPG market works. I mean really understand how it works. First and foremost, there really is no such thing as a standard tariff (no matter what any supplier or website will tell you). You only have to look through this thread to see the variation in prices that people are being quoted by different suppliers - often dependent on their specific usage and exact location, often also dependent on the user's "negotiating" skills, and further influenced by other business decisions made by the suppliers at the time of contract negotiation. To post a price in a given area and suggest that is the "correct" price is likely to be highly misleading - if the posted price is too low (how many people will be able to come even close to the 32.5ppl that mitchy74 just got a few weeks back) then people could waste an awful lot of time and energy chasing phantoms; If the price is too high (as, in my opinion are all the bulk LPG offer prices you curently have posted), then people are likely to accept unreasonably high prices as "correct" and therefore be paying over the odds from the outset. To underline this point, I would suggest you take time to read the recent items by Jamie McGinnes in the Sunday Times (this week, 16th Jan, on p.7 and and last week, 11th Jan, on the Front Page). He discussed how the oil comparison site, boilerjuice, was completely distorting and manipulating the prices in the domestic heating oil market. The suggestion was that this was for business gain (boilerjuice is now owned by the Irish company, DCC. DCC also own a substantial segment of the UK domestic heating oil market and our beloved LPG supplier, Flogas), but the bottom line is an inaccurate price comparison site is inevitably going to distort the prevailing market price, no matter how honourable its intentions. If you read back through this thread, you will see that a "realistic" (and therefore fair) price for bulk LPG is currently somewhere around the 40-46ppl mark. Any LPG price comparison site needs to explain this in detail and make these points crystal clear;
If you are going to have a price comparison site, then you really do need to have a comprehensive (or at least as near as possible comprehensive) listing of all bulk suppliers for people to contact; Unless I am mistaken, your site currently lists 11 suppliers, only one of which (Flogas) is a "big player", and does not accurately show their coverage (Flogas are pretty much universal). There are, to my knowledge, four "big" players, twenty odd truly independent suppliers, a number of what I would call "pseudo-independent" suppliers and at least four other members-only buying cooperatives offering supply to the general public (for a small annual fee).

I have, over the past few months, thought long and hard about trying to put together some kind of price comparison site, and I came to the conclusion that the only meaningful way to do that at present is to ignore whatever price a supplier says they will offer you and to scrape around the web looking for contract prices actually being quoted to or paid by real LPG users. I came to the conclusion, that however useful this might be, the lack of places where people post such data made the data of limited value and the time involved to collate and keep such a site up to date was prohibitive. I did also consider setting something up that would allow people to post their current prices and then to use some kind of algorithm to work out a "best price". I did not pursue this because:

I think it would be too easy for LPG suppliers to submit the prices they would like to be paid, or LPG users to post the prices they would like to pay as current "real" prices, and therefore distort the pricing data making it meaningless, and
To make submitted data useful, it would be necessary to collect a significant of personal information about the user both to verify their identity and to develop meaningful and accurate geographic and usage data. It would also be necessary to understand at what stage of their contract they were at - only new-contract prices would be relevant to the price a user could expect to pay, but subsequent increases experienced by users would give a good indication of how different suppliers impose price increases/pass costs on. Clearly, there are significant data protection issues at stake here and whoever was running such a site would need to be registered with the Data Protection Registrar.

To make matters worse, to verify the integrity of submitted data and spot unrealistic deviations, access would really be needed to a reliable and universally accepted commodity price index (such as Platts LP Gaswire). Sadly, I don't have the odd spare $1700 or so sloshing around (annually) to fund access to such a resource (if I did, I would probably be less worried about how much I am paying for LPG!)

If anyone can come up with a way to overcome the issues dealt with above, then that would (in my opinion) be the best way to develop a good price comparison site.

HateLPG (not wishing to do anything on bonfires - just trying to be realistic and helpful)

LittleVermin · 17 January 2011 at 2:14AM

PaulBassi wrote: »

I have started a comparison site for users of LPG see lpgdirectory.co.uk.

I collect prices from various sources on the web and make them available to visitors to the site. There are two main price sections one each for bulk and cylinder prices.

I am open to suggestions about how to improve and develop the site so that it is as useful as possible for LPG users.

.......

Hi Paul,

I'll be looking with interest to see how you develop http://www.lpgdirectory.co.uk

There was quite a lot of discussion a month or two back, on and off forum, led by HateLPG, about the validity of a price comparison site for bulk LPG. People come on the forum and ask for simple advice - "who should I get my bulk LPG from?" and I fear your site may mislead for the reasons HateLPG gives. Of course some people come on the forum, wrap a wet towel round their heads and read and read ...!

We hope OFT/TS looks at bulk LPG soon.

Bottled gas is a much simpler operation - but we know from posts in the LPG / LPG Prices thread people get ripped off, so your site with regualrly updated prices should be helpful.

Janners · 17 January 2011 at 10:03PM

DAVID.T wrote: »

i think flogas have just increased bulk by 7p ltr, anyone received a letter yet?

HateLPG wrote: »

Holy McKeith!!!!!!

Shell did the same 6 weeks previous to Flogas, had a letter dated 26th November giving 10 day notice of a 7p increase, that's following notification of a 5p increase in August and a 3p increase in February. Had I not been out of contract and not been able to renegotiate, I would currently be paying 53ppl (albeit with the option to challenge their increase using 3ppl in 6 months clause).

HateLPG · 18 January 2011 at 12:53AM

I've been giving some more thought about how to get some kind of LPG "guide price" for a given area. (OK, I can hear you all groan - HateLPG is off on one again!). I know I've posted in this vein before, but I've since crystalised and clarified my thoughts - hopefully into something more useful than just a vague conceptualisation.

While this method will not give an exact price, I think it could be rather useful when trying to establish a "ball park" figure for negotiation come contract-renewal time.

As I posted a while back, I think LPG autogas can be used to get a fair approximation of the price of LPG. There are pros and cons to this, as follows:

This will, inevitably, be an approximation, but it's as good a "universal guide" as I can think of.
On the downside, garages selling LPG will be "high users" and will have certain economies of scale. I don't know the specifics of supply, but having looked at a few garages, I think that a storage capacity of 3-4000 lites is fairly typical (roughly double the size of a typical domestic installation - maybe David.T could confirm?)
Counter to this, garages will be making additional profit in the final sale price, so I think that for the purposes of this approach, it is not unreasonable to assume that this will at least balance any cost reduction due to economies of scale. In truth, I strongly suspect the profit margin will probably exceed the savings made as a result of being a high-user, but I'll leave that for now - it just means that our final price will be on the high side of accurate!
Fuel prices are more volatile than long-term contract prices, and will therefore follow the commodity price more closely. This is an advantage when trying to calculate a base price on any given day (i.e. when you are due to meet your salesman to thrash out a new contract).

So, as an example:

I have had a look around my local garages (you'll need to check those in your area) and the current average price of LPG on the forecourt this week is 67.9ppl
(NOTE: Calor, Flogas and some other bulk suppliers often sell Autogas from their bulk or cylinder depots. If they cost substanitally less than LPG on sale on a garage forecourt, I would be cautious of including those prices in the average, since they have minimal delivery costs to the point of sale and will therefore distort the figures. In truth, I supect they just price-match locally and accept the higher margin).

That price is made up of the raw delivered cost, the profit margin, the duty and the V.A.T. As explained above, for the purposes of this exercise, I have decided to ignore the profit margin, choosing to offest that against the reduced delivery cost that will be paid by a larger user, so we need to worry only about the additional cost in duty and VAT.

Remember, we domestic users pay VAT at the lower rate of 5% on our LPG (which is invariably quoted ex-VAT anyway), but road fuel attracts the higher rate, currently 20%. Also VAT is always added on after all other duties and charges, so, the average ex-vat price of LPG in my local area is currently:

(67.9 / 120) x 100 = 56.583ppl

(The price inclusive of VAT is the price + x % where x is the current VAT rate, i.e. 67.9ppl is 120% of the ex VAT price, so to find the ex-VAT price, we need to divide by 120 and then multiply by 100)

So, we have a price before VAT and after duty of 56.583 per LITRE of LPG

To complicate things, HMRC in their wisdom, impose duty on LPG per kilogram, so we have to work out how much duty is applied to 1 litre of LPG.

The duty currently (as of 1/1/2011) stands at 33.04 p/kg (see http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1085465445〈=en&type=RESOURCES) but could change, especially if the Government decides to bring in a "Fuel Duty Stabiliser", so always check this duty rate before doing the calculations.

According to BP, the density of LPG in its liquid state is 0.537kg/litre (http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=16003529&contentId=7020321)

So, the duty payable on 1 litre of LPG at the pump is 0.537 * 33.04 = 17.742 pence

Therefore, the price of forecourt LPG in my area, ex VAT and ex Duty is 56.583 - 17.742 = 38.841 ppl.

I don't know the the costs of actually running a delivery tanker, but I know they are not cheap, and the drivers require certain qualifications to drive hazardous loads (ADR), which further increases the costs. However, a small tanker can carry up to 8 tonnes (just under 15,000 litres) of LPG and a large tanker can carry up to 12 tonnes (just over 22,000 litres) of LPG. Assuming that the "delivery cost" associated with a tanker load is 10ppl, that means (based on these figures) that a fully-scheduled small tanker could be earing up to £1,500 per day, (or > £350,000 per year), based on a five day week, notwithstanding any profit on the LPG itself and a large tanker could be earning anything up to £2,200 per day (>£500,000 per year) in delivery charges alone. And while I know they are not cheap, I don't believe running a tanker within a (typical) delivery radius of 40 miles of a depot costs anything near that. However, I'm a generous soul, so lets just assume, for the sake of argument, that anything up to 10ppl delivery charge could be construed as a "fair charge".

So how does all this help me?

I believe these calculations give me a defensible ballpark figure for LPG against which I can assess what I am paying, and gives me a concrete platform to use as a bargaining tool next time Mr nicely-dressed-lpg-salesman-in-his-company-BMW turns up to negotiate my next contract (OK, to be fair, I've never actually seen an LPG salesmane driving a BMW, but you get my drift

).

I would say, in broad terms that if you are paying something of the order of that price (as calculated for your area, based on your local foecourt LPG prices), you are probably doing OK. If you are paying much more than 5ppl more than that, you are arguably paying a bit on the high side, 10ppl more and I would say you are definitely paying too much. 20ppl or more than that and I'm afraid I would say you are probably being right-royally ripped off, and it might be time to think about talking to Trading Standards!

DAVID.T_3 · 18 January 2011 at 3:15PM

HateLPG wrote: »

I've been giving some more thought about how to get some kind of LPG "guide price" for a given area. (OK, I can hear you all groan - HateLPG is off on one again!). I know I've posted in this vein before, but I've since crystalised and clarified my thoughts - hopefully into something more useful than just a vague conceptualisation.

While this method will not give an exact price, I think it could be rather useful when trying to establish a "ball park" figure for negotiation come contract-renewal time.

As I posted a while back, I think LPG autogas can be used to get a fair approximation of the price of LPG. There are pros and cons to this, as follows:

This will, inevitably, be an approximation, but it's as good a "universal guide" as I can think of.

On the downside, garages selling LPG will be "high users" and will have certain economies of scale. I don't know the specifics of supply, but having looked at a few garages, I think that a storage capacity of 3-4000 lites is fairly typical (roughly double the size of a typical domestic installation - maybe David.T could confirm?)

Counter to this, garages will be making additional profit in the final sale price, so I think that for the purposes of this approach, it is not unreasonable to assume that this will at least balance any cost reduction due to economies of scale. In truth, I strongly suspect the profit margin will probably exceed the savings made as a result of being a high-user, but I'll leave that for now - it just means that our final price will be on the high side of accurate!

Fuel prices are more volatile than long-term contract prices, and will therefore follow the commodity price more closely. This is an advantage when trying to calculate a base price on any given day (i.e. when you are due to meet your salesman to thrash out a new contract).

So, as an example:

I have had a look around my local garages (you'll need to check those in your area) and the current average price of LPG on the forecourt this week is 67.9ppl
(NOTE: Calor, Flogas and some other bulk suppliers often sell Autogas from their bulk or cylinder depots. If they cost substanitally less than LPG on sale on a garage forecourt, I would be cautious of including those prices in the average, since they have minimal delivery costs to the point of sale and will therefore distort the figures. In truth, I supect they just price-match locally and accept the higher margin).

That price is made up of the raw delivered cost, the profit margin, the duty and the V.A.T. As explained above, for the purposes of this exercise, I have decided to ignore the profit margin, choosing to offest that against the reduced delivery cost that will be paid by a larger user, so we need to worry only about the additional cost in duty and VAT.

Remember, we domestic users pay VAT at the lower rate of 5% on our LPG (which is invariably quoted ex-VAT anyway), but road fuel attracts the higher rate, currently 20%. Also VAT is always added on after all other duties and charges, so, the average ex-vat price of LPG in my local area is currently:

(67.9 / 120) x 100 = 56.583ppl

(The price inclusive of VAT is the price + x % where x is the current VAT rate, i.e. 67.9ppl is 120% of the ex VAT price, so to find the ex-VAT price, we need to divide by 120 and then multiply by 100)

So, we have a price before VAT and after duty of 56.583 per LITRE of LPG

To complicate things, HMRC in their wisdom, impose duty on LPG per kilogram, so we have to work out how much duty is applied to 1 litre of LPG.

The duty currently (as of 1/1/2011) stands at 33.04 p/kg (see http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1085465445〈=en&type=RESOURCES) but could change, especially if the Government decides to bring in a "Fuel Duty Stabiliser", so always check this duty rate before doing the calculations.

According to BP, the density of LPG in its liquid state is 0.537kg/litre (http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=16003529&contentId=7020321)

So, the duty payable on 1 litre of LPG at the pump is 0.537 * 33.04 = 17.742 pence

Therefore, the price of forecourt LPG in my area, ex VAT and ex Duty is 56.583 - 17.742 = 38.841 ppl.

I don't know the the costs of actually running a delivery tanker, but I know they are not cheap, and the drivers require certain qualifications to drive hazardous loads (ADR), which further increases the costs. However, a small tanker can carry up to 8 tonnes (just under 15,000 litres) of LPG and a large tanker can carry up to 12 tonnes (just over 22,000 litres) of LPG. Assuming that the "delivery cost" associated with a tanker load is 10ppl, that means (based on these figures) that a fully-scheduled small tanker could be earing up to £1,500 per day, (or > £350,000 per year), based on a five day week, notwithstanding any profit on the LPG itself and a large tanker could be earning anything up to £2,200 per day (>£500,000 per year) in delivery charges alone. And while I know they are not cheap, I don't believe running a tanker within a (typical) delivery radius of 40 miles of a depot costs anything near that. However, I'm a generous soul, so lets just assume, for the sake of argument, that anything up to 10ppl delivery charge could be construed as a "fair charge".

So how does all this help me?

I believe these calculations give me a defensible ballpark figure for LPG against which I can assess what I am paying, and gives me a concrete platform to use as a bargaining tool next time Mr nicely-dressed-lpg-salesman-in-his-company-BMW turns up to negotiate my next contract (OK, to be fair, I've never actually seen an LPG salesmane driving a BMW, but you get my drift ).

I would say, in broad terms that if you are paying something of the order of that price (as calculated for your area, based on your local foecourt LPG prices), you are probably doing OK. If you are paying much more than 5ppl more than that, you are arguably paying a bit on the high side, 10ppl more and I would say you are definitely paying too much. 20ppl or more than that and I'm afraid I would say you are probably being right-royally ripped off, and it might be time to think about talking to Trading Standards!

Hi
If the Autogas site was at 67.9 the calculation would be to remove the vat 20% = 56.58 less the road duty 16.52 (i know this is technically not correct but its the figure used by mr revenue man!)

so the gas price would be 40.06 p ltr. Just another thing to factor in is yes they are cheaper to deliver to and they usually hold 6-8,000lts, but more important is the usage through them. I have autogas customers who use more in day than a domestic tank does in 2 years.

A domestic tank costs about £1500 to install so if you divide that by 20 years service its £75.00 year divide by average usage 2500ltrs. So add 3p a ltr for you tank. The £ 50.00 tank rental charge would be eaten by the 10 year test and 20 year test.

so i would say 40.06 at the pump + 3p ltr tank + 5p delivery + 3p profit =51.06 so 50-55p would be about correct, anything less treat as an intro offer anything above 55 too much and 79p !!!!! just silly

HateLPG · 18 January 2011 at 8:32PM

DAVID.T wrote: »

so i would say 40.06 at the pump + 3p ltr tank + 5p delivery + 3p profit =51.06 so 50-55p would be about correct, anything less treat as an intro offer anything above 55 too much and 79p !!!!! just silly

David, I'm afraid (once again) we are going to have to agree to differ in our analyses - inevitable really, as we are looking at this from completely different perspectives

OK, so Mr Tax Man decides to set fuel duty based on a per/kg rate, and then use completely the wrong conversion factor (0.5 kg/l) to establish the per-litre rate. Why does that not surprise me? You're in the business so I'll accept that you know more about Mr Tax Man's shortcomings in this respect

DAVID.T wrote: »

I have autogas customers who use more in day than a domestic tank does in 2 years.

There will always be extremes of use. I am sure you are quite correct in this statement, but I have to consider that it's potentially misleading. I know one person who has a 2000l tank and uses LPG only for cooking - he refills it once every 3 years or so. I'm quite sure there are very large garages that could get sell 1400-1500litres of fuel a day, (i.e. more in a day than my friend does in 2 years) but I don't think either of those scenarios could be considered to be anywhere close to the "norm".

DAVID.T wrote: »

A domestic tank costs about £1500 to install so if you divide that by 20 years service its £75.00 year divide by average usage 2500ltrs. So add 3p a ltr for you tank. The £ 50.00 tank rental charge would be eaten by the 10 year test and 20 year test.

I have a number of issues with this point:

A domestic tank may cost £1500 to install, but bear in mind, the user is often asked to foot a substantial part of that bill at the time of installation;
The days of the £50 annual tank standing charge are long gone - as has been frequently mentioned on this forum - the standard typical standing charge is now more like £100 per year, and WILL rise SUBSTANTIALLY (by considerably more than the opportunity cost of the capital tied up in the tank) over the next 20 years!
Thirdly, the tank at all times remains under the title of the supplier - it is not a lease hire or lease purchase agreement that the user is entering into, and any and all tank costs should be (and I believe are) covered by the standing charge. From an accountancy point of view, I have no doubt that the suppliers view this as a necessary cost of sale (ok, so they will try to claw back some of the value - but that should be done via the standing charge and NOT as an on-cost). Furthermore, the tank will remain on their books as a net asset, being written off against tax and depreciation over a period of typically 5 years.
If a tank has an expected service life of 20 years, then the 20 year service test is an irrelevance. I have spoken to a number of LPG reps on this and they assure me that in general, rather than messing about with a 20 year test, they just hoick the tank out and replace it.
I would not call 2500 litres a year average - that is decidedly on the low side. I would say that "average" use is probably closer to 3,500 - 4000 litres a year, especially now that colder winters seem to be becoming the norm.

So where does that leave us?

Minimum Income from tank rental over 20 years: (20 * £100) = £2000;

Cost of ten year test (inferred from your figures [The £ 50.00 tank rental charge would be eaten by the 10 year test and 20 year test]) = £500 (although I doubt it's anything LIKE this high)

Income from tank rental over 20 years AFTER testing = £2000 - £500 = £1500;

Less cost of tank £1500 - £1500 = £0;

So, I think it is fair to say that tanks costs should be more or less well covered by the annual standing charge after all!

Don't forget also, (especially if the economies of scale are as large as you claim), there is still a healthy element of profit included in the price of LPG at the pumps - the LPG companies will be selling it to the garage forecourt at a profit and then the garage themselves will be chucking a nice juicy chunk of profit on top, so I think that more than covers your suggestion of an additional 3ppl litre profit.

I will accept your quoted price of 5ppl delivery charge (still unnecessarily high, I believe, but a lot of that will have to do with how well the depots are able to schedule and plan their deliveries - delivering full tanker loads in a small area will inevitably be more cost effective than doing multiple small drops over a wide area and delivering only 4 tonnes a day)

That would give me a revised price of:

40.06 at the pump + [STRIKE]3p ltr tank[/STRIKE] + 5p delivery + [STRIKE]3p profit[/STRIKE] = 45.06

So I would say that if (as in my case) the forecourt price in your area is 67.9ppl, 45ppl is the target price you should be aiming to meet or beat!

I would, however, unconditionally agree with your statment: "anything above 55 too much and 79p !!!!! just silly"

Speakeasy_2 · 18 January 2011 at 11:14PM

Good work HateLPG. I have a figure if accurate, of 62.9p/litre (based on 500 litre) for heating oil from oilpricecheck.co.uk. As generally agreed, LPG needing to be at least 30% cheaper, this works out at 44p/litre which is close to your figure of 45p/litre. LPG needs to be at least as low as this to be competitive (in my opinion).

HateLPG · 19 January 2011 at 12:33AM

In support of my earlier posts on the comparison between domestic and automotive LPG, I have just thought that it might be interesting to apply the calculation (as best I can) to the contract price I was offered last September. Hand on heart, this was not pre-conceived - I just thought in and idle moment, that it might be an interesting excercise to prove or disprove my argument - and I in the interest of honesty and transparency, I would have posted this finding , whatever the result.

I signed my latest contract in September last year. Looking at historical data, the National average price for Automotive LPG at that time was about 54ppl. VAT at that time stood at 17.5% and duty on LPG was 30.53p/kg (which by Mr. Tax Man's warped conversion - see David.Ts last post - equates to 15.265ppl). I will accept David's delivery price of 5ppl as it seems to me to be a reasonable across-the-board rate for approximation purposes.

So, applying my suggested calculations:

Pump Price: 54ppl
ex-VAT pump Price: 54 / 1.175 = 45.957ppl
less duty: 45.957 - 15.265 = 30.692ppl

plus 5ppl delivery: 30.692 + 5.0 = 35.7 ppl (rounded to nearest 1/10th penny).

And what starting price was I offered at that time for my new LPG contract?

36.5ppl!

Go figure

HateLPG · 19 January 2011 at 5:25PM

I have just been casting my eyes over a recent Flogas contract (thank you for sending it to me - you know who you are), and I have spotted an interesting couple of clauses. These have relevance in the event of supply difficulties due to bad weather, and I think it would be useful to highlight them, given some of the dreadful problems recently experienced by several contributors.

11.4 We shall not be liable to you for any delay in performance of the Agreement to the extent that such delay is due to events outside Flogas' reasonable control including but not limited to acts of God, war, flood, fire, riots, civil commotion, malicious damage, explosion, governmental actions and any other similar events, and labour disputes, strikes and lock-outs which are outside of its reasonable control ("Force Majeure Event")

So, we have a definition of a "Force Majeur Event" that will, without question, include extreme snow.

The contract goes on to say:

11.5 Notwithstanding clause 2.3 [the usual exclusivity clause], if we are unable to deliver LPG because of a Force Majeure Event, you shall be permitted to purchase liquefied petroleum gas from another source until such time as the Force Majeure Event has, to our satisfaction ceased or until the Agreement is terminated by either party in accordance with clause 8 [The usual default and termination clause]

There are a couple of interesting points here that I will mention in passing:

If there was a strike or industrial action by Flogas employees that resulted in a failure of supply, this probably wouldn't (according to their definition) constitiute a "Force Majeure Event" (because this is NOT outside their control!), and so you would be unable to invoke clause 11.5
There is an interesting philosophical and legal point here in respect of acts of God. It almost never appears in modern contracts, for good reasons, but that's a discussion for another time and place

This puts into context a statement on the BDS Fuels website (http://www.bdsfuels.co.uk/bds_fuels_news.html) which I saw a few weeks back, but wasn't too sure about at the time:

"BDS Fuels are now on standby to deliver emergency gas supplies to any South Lakeland home in need. Emergency delivery from BDS Fuels will not contravene existing supplier contracts that you may have."

I don't have any contracts from other suppliers readily to hand as I write this, but I suspect that this type of clause will exist in all contracts. Maybe others could check their supply contracts and confirm, one way or the other?

suesmiles · 19 January 2011 at 5:35PM

I'm paying 52.4ppl from Calor. Price was increased by 3.5p on 1st Dec, and there were several other price increases last year - this time last year I was paying 43.4ppl. Decided to compare some prices with a possible view to change suppliers and today I was quoted 41.9ppl from Shell, for first six months, subject to 2 yr contract (not sure if this includes VAT but am assuming not). Flogas was 46.9ppl and said they couldn't drop below this price, and Calor offered me 44.9ppl + VAT. If I'm right in thinking that domestic users of lpg pay only 5% (could someone please correct me if I'm wrong) then this is a better price than I'm currently paying. Have come to the conclusion that the only way to get a cheaper rate is to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate and play the big boys off against one another! Have just had enough of paying such a lot of money to cook a meal and keep warm, especially when it's been so cold. Calor have today sent me a contract at the price they quoted, but am now going to see if they will drop when I mention Shell's offer. If they won't, then I shall consider changing to Shell, but would appreciate any feedback from anyone who uses them. Thanks for all the help I've already had from reading this forum.

Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

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