HEATING OIL
STANDARD 5 WORKING DAY DELIVERY OR LESS: MINIMUM ORDER 1000 Lts.
For smaller amounts & same day delivery - CLICK HERE
We are proud to be partnered with the UK's largest oil producer -GB Oils - we are a supply center / order point for them.
Order through us and you will receive quicker delivery times and lower prices, directly via one of GB Oils many regional delivery suppliers. Fast, Efficient and Low Priced.
Prices change daily, so to get a price, fixed at to-days lowest prices, (or phone on 0754 664 30 31) just complete the form below and send it to us. We will email you or call you with a price by return. There is no commitment to order. We can do this for ANYWHERE in the UK as GB Oils own over 100 oil delivery companies and there will be one in your area waiting to deliver your order fast. The form below is not "rigid" so you can, for example enter 2 or three amounts to see if ordering more volume yields a lower price; so in the "How many liters" box you could enter; "1000, 2000" for example and we will then quote you for 1000lts & 2000lts. Prices are not always less the more you order but in some circumstances there may be a slight price advantage so if you can take larger amounts it's always worth checking.
Want Less Than 1000 Lts? Click Here.
Want Delivery Today? Click Here.
(local area to Terrington Gas & Fuels only)
Gas Suppliers: For Low priced Bottled Gas in East Anglia click Here - for other areas click Here
Here we will discuss where gas comes from, what determines the price and how you can find a reliable, low cost gas provider.
For the cheapest Bottled Gas Supplies Delivered to your door in East Anglia, Click Here
What is a Gas Suppler ?
In sharp contrast to this, bottled gas suppliers like flo gas and calor have to be very hands on in the business. They have to source the gas, negotiate the price, physically transport it in tankers, store it on their site, complying with all the safety legislation and EU standards. They then have to test each bottle for integrity, each bottle has an ID number embossed into the metal and that number is tied to a registration process and safety record. The bottled gas supplier then fills each bottle to exacting weights and measures standard, LPG (liquid propane gas) is a liquid under pressure and only becomes a gas when it leaves the pressure of the bottle at the top of the tank. This is why LPG tanks have to be upright for normal use like boilers, cookers etc. Tanks can be laid on their side for other uses such as engines (fork lift trucks for example) which can cope with the fuel in a liquid or gaseous state. Every bottle has to have an ‘expansion space’ to allow for changes in temperature. As temperature rises the LPG expands slightly and as temperature falls, the LPG contracts slightly. This is why LPG is sold in weight and not volume, the liquid weight remains constant but the volume may change with temperature. Once the bottles are filled they have to be taken by truck, driven by specially licensed drivers to the distributors. There they are unloaded, usually manually, stored in a safe manner until sold. The distributor will then put them on his truck driven by specially licensed drivers and deliver to your home. Yet despite all this work LPG remains at a more predictable price and comparable or lower cost than heating oil or electric heating. Of course, mains gas is cheaper but this is seldom an option for those of us who live in rural areas where mains gas pipelines are not worth installing for Transco as the housing density is too low to make big profits. This is where bottled gas, LPG comes into its own.
Mains gas, however, always remains a gas and is pressurised from gas pumping forwarding stations located around the country. The gas distribution system is owned and run by Transco which use to be part of British Gas until deregulation when it was forced to split into 2 independent companies. The regulator oversees the charges imposed by Transco (now part of the National Grid) (Visit National Grid) for transporting the gas within their system to every gas meter in the country. Every post code has been assigned a ‘delivery cost’ agreed by Transco and the regulator. This cost has to be paid by every ‘supplier’, including British Gas. This provides a level price playing field for every supplier. Every Gas meter has a unique MPRN (meter point reference number) (equivalent to electricity Mpan metering point administration number) . This identifies the exact location of each meter. The change from Transco to the National Grid has given rise to the introduction of IGT's (independent gas transporters) These are licensed installers of infrastructure pipework which can be connected to the National Grid. There are around 8 IGT's at this time. A property can ask for a quote to install mains gas to them anywhere in the country. Where Transco would do this for free Other than a meter connection charge) but would only supply a mains gas pipe to a remote area if there were sufficient usage (around 800 plus homes within a 1sq mile area.) If these figures were not satisfied then you could not have mains gas. However, with the introduction of IGT's it is now possible to get a quote for just one to a few homes. The quote though may run into 100's of thousands of Pounds! So most remote areas will still be unable to connect to mains gas because it will be cost prohibited.
To be a supplier of gas is really just a ‘paper exercise’ since the ‘gas supplier’ who deals with the end user, actually never deals with the supply of gas to the users meter, that’s the domain of Transco. So if it all comes from the same source and through the same pipes how can prices differ? Just who is the gas supplier ? To understand this you need to realise that there are several factors which can determine the price to the end user.
To start with we need to understand who does what!
The gas extractors, oil companies who own the rigs in the sea and on land extract the gas and oil and other deposits from the ground by drilling into pockets. The gas is stored or directly introduced into the gas pipeline system. Contrary to belief, most of our gas does not come from the rigs in the North Sea. It’s true, a good proportion of it use to come from there but as supplies dwindle and gas consumption continues to rise, other sources have to be found. You may be surprised to know that much our gas starts off it’s life in Russia and China. Giant pipelines snake across the continents to distribute gas to all European countries that wish to buy it . Russia is the worlds largest gas producer and holds the largest gas sources. It also has the largest reserves of coal. Russian Gas is piped ashore to the UK. China also delivers gas to the UK via huge tankers which unload into the gas reserves in Liverpool. They also supply a lot of LPG for bottled gas as well delivered in giant sea tankers. Once landed on shore, natural gas is stored in large gas-storage tanks. Here it is sold to the supplier while still in storage. It is released into the national grid gas pipe network as required. Part of the negotiation of buying the gas is how long, what the buyer agrees to purchase, will remain in storage. Of course the Cubic Meters that the supplier buys is just a figure on paper and not a physical ‘tank’ of gas. It’s a commitment to buy within a set period of time.
If the supplier gets their sums wrong it can spell disaster for them. If they Under buy or they increase their customer base too quickly for the amount of gas they have purchased, the customer still gets their gas but the supplier has to pay a much higher price for ‘emergency buys’. This is detailed in their contract. This could be twice as much per cubic meter as they are charging you for, so penalties are harsh. On the other hand, if they buy too much they will get charged storage penalty charges for not using what they contracted to buy by a certain date.
How accurate a supplier is in determining the gas their customers will consume is a vital factor in whether the gas supplier makes good profits or not. Therefore, built into the end users gas price is a ‘margin’ for error. That margin is determined by each individual supplier and added to their price.
For 15 years I ran a company which did the analysis on large business consumption patterns on gas, electricity, water and sewerage. The major difference between gas and electricity charges is that gas can be stored and the price known in advance, electricity has to be consumed as it’s made and cannot be stored as AC (alternating current) and is impractical to store as DC (direct current – batteries). Therefore , electricity prices change every half hour depending on the demand throughout the country. These increases and decreases in demand are very predictable and give rise to the ‘tariff price system’. Every electricity supplier produces their own tariffs. E7 or economy 7 is a well known tariff for electricity and allows for lower prices in off peak demand, usually for 7 hours between midnight and 7am. There are hundreds of tariffs for electricity and part of our company’s role was to analyse a businesses usage every ½ hour and find a tariff which best suited their needs or created one that suited their needs and find a supplier who would provide it under those terms, thereby reducing costs, sometimes by 60%.
Another thing that can affect profits for gas suppliers is price fluctuation. A supplier can negotiate and sign a deal today and tomorrow, a change in exchange rates, market costs etc could mean that the supplier could have had a much better buy or a much worse buy just by waiting for a day, so this is a bit of a lottery and requires similar skills to that of the stock market where experts will try to ‘read’ what the future price will be and when the best time to buy is. Of course, opinions vary wildly just as the stock markets. Again each supplier will add in a ‘margin’ to try to cope with this.
These are just a few of the variables. These are similar variables faced by all fuel suppliers. In determining the price they will sell to you at, in reality, the gas supplier will look at what their competitors are charging and ‘pitch’ just below, equal to or just above that price depending on if they want to attract new customers, maintain customers or shed some customers so they don’t face charges for overselling what they have purchased. These prices may be revised over the set period. These are the factors to what you pay.
1) Every gas supplier needs to estimate just how much gas their customer base will consume over any given period, say 3 yrs. Knowing this and being able to accurately estimate this will determine how much gas they must negotiate to buy each year. So here are 2 factors, The price they can negotiate from the core providers and how much they buy, how much they may have to store or how much they oversell and may need to buy extra at inflated emergency prices.
2) The Fixed Transco cost. The only fixed price.
3) The running costs of their business, advertising, sales commissions etc.
4) The margins they estimate
5) The profit they would like to make.
Other fuel suppliers face similar variables, central heating oil, agricultural diesels, gas oil companies etc.
Of course what matters to you is how low you can get your price and for this you need to shop around. Using utility comparison sites is useful but you need to use more than one since these site don’t recommend certain suppliers for the good of their health! They get paid commissions. Different suppliers will pay different commissions to different comparison sites so you need to compare the compare sites to get a ‘balanced’ picture.
Bottled gas, heating oil, coal and solid fuels, gas oil, red diesel etc are all sold locally and delivered locally so comparison sites are not interested in these since they don’t pay commissions in large enough quantities.
When buying these it’s best to do local research, ring around a few. Of course price is not everything in this local market, reliability of delivery is vitally important. It’s no good to you running out of bottled gas for your heating on a cold winters night knowing that one supplier will sell it to you for £2 a bottle cheaper but can’t deliver for 4 days when by paying £2 extra you can have it within a few hours! Look for a supplier who will supply out of hours and provide you with a good price and a reliable and dependable service.
If you are unsure who your provider is for any utility, or you are buying a property and would like to find out who the suppliers are in that area, you can search ‘who is supplier’ followed by your post code. This will bring up a number of web sites where you can put in your post code and see the options of who is supplying the fuels you require to those areas, you can then check out only those suppliers prices which will reduce your efforts and save you wasting time on researching suppliers who will not supply to your location.
Those are the very basics of how the gas market works and answers the question, what is a gas supplier.