Heating Oil - Shop Around!

[DTCwordfan]

Just a tip for fellow ABers - for those of you who live in the sticks beyond the long tentacles of the Centrica British Gas organisation and who have oil heating, make sure you shop around when you come to buy kerosene or heating oil.

Standard heating oil complying with BS2869 class C2, one quote of 57p/litre plus VAT and another 64.5p - perversely the lowest one came from the company that has the image of being "up market" around here.

7p difference is ludricous - no difference in contractual terms, and it represents a delta of over £50....destiny for that the Christmas fund

[buildersmate]

Surely everyone that buys domestic heating oil does this?
One reference point worth checking is at Boiler Juice. This web-based supplier is not half as useful as it used to be (it is now owned by one of the big Irish oil distributors so has lost some of its reason to be competitive). However it will give you quote prices for oil for the input of your postcode (the price of oil varies across the country by postcode because of transportation costs so entering that it currently costs 57p/litre doesn't help).
I'm not recommending Boiler Juice will always come out lower (sometimes it doesn't) but it provides at least a start point.
Do not attempt to buy less than 1000 litres at a time to minmise quote prices from suppliers is another hot tip.
The springing up of local buying groups is the best way to assure value - I save about 3p per litre versus the Boiler Juice price by using one of these.
http://www.boilerjuice.com/

[sandyRoe]

All the home heating oil in Northern Ireland is imported through Belfast. Yet it's more expensive there than it is in towns almost 100 miles away.

[buildersmate]

I understand that, Red, and appreciate the difficulty for many people - just trying to point out a way of minimising cost.
Can't explain why oil price isn't DIRECTLY related to distance from supply depot, Sandy, but agree that it doesn't correlate. In England/Scotland, the 'depot' is not a simple case of the distance to the oil refinery (Grangemouth, Sheppey, Stanlow etc.) because there is a distribution network the oil companies use based on the Government-owned pipelines that criss-cross the country. This brings down the cost of bulk distribution around the mainland.

[DTCwordfan]

Buildersmate - I bet a lot of people dont comparison shop having a regular supplier, particularly among the more aged. In so much as more than half - my logic to that being when I worked in the deregulating gas market, more than half our contracts (on small businesses) rolled through without "challenge."

You have also misunderstood something - my message was not one about the price and no, I wouldn't expect a contract price in Northern Ireland, Tomintoul, Holt, etc to be the same as down here. The message was about the spread of prices, 7p being quiet considerable.

Lastly a l lot of folk have 900l or smaller tanks, so orders over the m3 are impossible, not unless we start bottling the excess.

[DTCwordfan]

helen - 57.5p in NI (MacGee Oils, Springtown and Gallagher on their local Postcodes) - the most expensive being LCC Oils at 60.5p - a big difference to the huge spread down here.

[DTCwordfan]

assuming 900l - my quote was on 750 (inc what they call check oil - i.e. between 700l and 750) - we have one of those two tiered radio "meters"/alarms on the tank

[DTCwordfan]

and buildersmate, fyi, the BritishPipelineAgency is a JV between Shell and BP UK, not the government.

[buildersmate]

DT, fyi the Government does own a pipeline - this one.
http://en.wikipedia.o..._and_Pipelines_Agency
Commercial operators also use it to pump oil around the country.

[DTCwordfan]

yes - that is more the military one......

BPA are the one that pipe into Buncefield etc and then onto Heathrow, Gatwick etc....

http://www.bpa.co.uk/

[DTCwordfan]

and they are interconnected an co-mingle product.....

[bednobs]

i don't shop around because i have a direct debit with total butler, meaning i'm nearly £1000 in credit. When we first moved here, we didn't have the money (around £600 at the time)to fill up the tank, so tb does a scheme whereby they give it to you, then you pay direct debit until you've paid for it. Over the last 8 years we seem to have built up a credit

[bednobs]

ps if obly it were 600 quid to fill a tank now!

[DTCwordfan]

advertising is not permitted here, ukoilman. Tempis et desolé

[AlBags]

With only one post .. that will get you removed ... sorry.

[AlBags]

Very funny .. but soon you'll be gone and have got nowhere with your ad.