47kg Propane Calor Gas Prices - What are you paying?

Hi i pay under 50 but im sure is discounted as i go direct and got price frozen for 6 monthes

Right. So now I know I was being skinned, if that is what they are going for elsewhere. I shall be having 'words' with my supplier.

I follow this thread on a regular basis and each time my blood boils with comments made by the buying public.
You have no idea of the number of hoops that LPG distributors have to jump through and the costs involved therein providing a bottle of gas to you through all winds and weathers, across dangerous paths, checking your hoses and sometimes changing a light bulbs etc for little old ladies..
Lets me enlighten you on just a few things that need to be taken into consideration before you judge and call dealers greedy and cheats..
Storage:
This is heavily regulated, the land itself is not cheap or easy to come by, once you have a yard, you have to abide to the latest HSE regulations, separation distances, risk assessments, emergency procedures, fire extinguishers, if you store over a certain amount you are then inspected by another authority because you are a potential terrorist threat.
Alarms, CCTV, security, all cost money for supply, install and maintenance.
Staff:
Delivery staff need to be trained to ADR standard, this is a week in a classroom which costs about £500.00 plus wages and has to be taken every five years on top of drivers CPC.
You are regulated by tachograph how many hours a driver can work and drive for with mandatory breaks and rest days/times and as such can only physically deliver a finite number of cylinders per day in areas that are by their very nature "off grid" and therfore invariably very rural down little lanes into the middle of no-where.
Product:
The product, LPG is derived from Oil production and therefore wholly reliant on the cost of oil and the dollar/pound exchange rate. This fluctuates, yes it goes down occasionally but when it does, this is compensating for the times it has gone up and up and up and the increases are absorbed.
Once it is refined it has to be taken by tanker to a filling plant, once there trained personnel working under quite understandably high health and safety regs have to put it into cylinders, which of course have to be made to very high standards and maintained on a regular basis.
Once the cylinders are filled they are placed onto lorries for distribution to the dealer/agent who then retails them from their expensive, heavily regulated premises on heavily modified trucks via highly qualified drivers.
Vehicles:
LPG is a very heavy product as i'm sure any of you who have lifted your own will testify to. As a consequence HGV's are used to distribute it, are you aware that each vehicle as well as the annual MOT which sees the vehicle off the road for four days you also have to have mini MOT's every four or six weeks? The vehicle itself has to have a special body to transport dangerous goods and of course tail lifts which also has to be annually inspected-of course.
Fuel is then a huge factor with lorries doing anything from 8mpg it costs a large amount just to fill the tank every other day.
Seasonality:
This is a feast and famine time, you get one chance, Ok we had the beast from the east this year but that in itself brought supply chain issues and days where drivers had to be paid to sit out the weather, but on the whole the winter now starts in November and ends in March giving a short window of opportunity to make enough money to see through the summer until the following winter. Yes consumers buy gas in the summer but it actually costs more than any profit made on such low volumes, the odd patio gas or 47 for someones hot water. Camping gaz currently retails at £37.00 for 2.7 kilos, by my poor maths that equals the equivalent of £643.00 for 47kg!!
To wrap this up, believe me I could go on, lets look at a few final costs and them I'm done.
Insurance? this goes up every year, we are carrying "dangerous goods" and as such there aren't that many insurance companies offering cover, therefore it is even more expensive.
You may have noticed that BP have pulled out of the LPG market, such a profit centred company doesn't pull out of a market that it is making money in, Countrywide has recently gone bust, again not profitable.
So please think before you have a whinge on this forum about how much it costs to deliver this product that can keep you alive.
By comparison, milk would cost £66.00, lager £237.00 and a starbucks late £611.00 all of this you collect from the supermarket. Just a thought.

You 'mainlanders' do make me smile! Here in Northern Ireland I got a quote at the weekend for one 47Kg cylinder, at £85 (inc delivery) so that's £170 for your 2 x cylinders, and you still want cheaper? LOL

Don't apologise, not your fault everyone in NI gets ripped off. Just though I'd offer another perspective to show you don't have it too bad. You get the cheapest you can, we all do that otherwise what's the point of being on this forum!