Heating Oil Price Rocketing

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I don't understand why it is rocketing, there seems no appetite to stop Russia's export of oil and gas - so supply is the same and there is no reason for demand to increase

Except people are panic buying

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astroarcadia said:

I ordered 1000l through BoilerJuice last week, 24th Feb. £720.00

Order confirmed and paid for, supplier was Watson Fuels, due this week.

Yesterday I received an email from Boilerjuice to say there was a technical fault with their website at the time of order and they are canceling my order.

Today I finally spoken to their customer services, they quoted me £1359 for 1000l with £15off as a good will gesture.

They have still not refunded my £720.00





Email said.....

"We are very sorry, but we are unable to fulfil your delivery and will need to cancel your order.

At the time your order was placed, our website was experiencing technical difficulties which meant that your order was accepted in error. We have since corrected the error however your order has been affected.

We have made every effort to seek an alternative supplier to fulfil your order however we've not been successful which means we have no other choice nut to cancel your Order"

That's a bit crap - but I presume it's covered in their Ts & Cs

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eltawater said:

This is practically petrol forecourt prices now

Before April Red diesel might be an option if anyone gets stuck

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I have capacity for 2yrs when I get 1000 litres of space I start watching weekly prices

It's worked well for 7 years

I topped up as I needed to in Jan and was waiting for the price to come down - due to panic buying currently that decision has cost me an additional 70p / L but I'm just buying 500L and hoping it will drop

Maybe I'm right maybe I'm not - in the grand scheme it doesn't really matter but I like a good deal if available

I called Rix - I've used them in the past, they are possibly Mr Spoon's Co. - "You're not a regular customer so we won't quote"

That's fine there are plenty that will and I simply wont use them in the future - it works both ways

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NDA said:

I heard a chap on the radio this morning speaking from Ukraine asking the west to 'hunker down and bite the bullet' in terms of putting up with these higher prices in an effort to isolate Russia. Freedom has a price.

But we are currently still importing oil and gas from Russia

These price rises are due to panic buying

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Deep Thought said:

I presume that normally people would run a tank down to maybe 20% then order 500 or 900 litres. With prices rising daily there seems to be a mindset now - rightly or wrongly - of "i must get fuel now because its going up in price daily", so anyone with a tank at 50% is buying and probably an element of people with 70% are buying (either 300 litres or filling their tank right up).

It doesnt take much strain on the system for supply and delivery issues - like we saw with petrol - when a load of people order when they dont really need it.

^^^ This

Local supplier has taken my order with delivery in 2-3 weeks but they won't give a price until the day before

I've just bought some red for pretty much the same price and topped up with that to tide me over

A few depots would sell Kero off the yard but it seems they stopped 18 months ago, no idea if the regs changed or whether it's just trying to encourage people to use these top up schemes they are all touting

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PushedDover said:

just received from our village co-op

Village Oil Cooperative said:

Dear All,

A neighbouring oil group has contacted us to let us know that today no company was prepared to take a group order at any price. Not only are prices rising daily there are significant concerns as to the supply of product from the refinery going forward.

We have therefore taken the decision to cancel the March order, and therefore any member that has placed an order with ourselves, they will need to place an independent order.

It looks like the oil suppliers are using this as an opportunity to push back against the Buying groups

However several of them note that there is NO supply issue on their websites / FB but they are pushing "Our regular customers" bullst

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FunkyGibbon said:

That is crap of suppliers - you are not on your own. I cannot get local suppliers I have used to quote. Last quote I had from BoilerJuice was 126ppl now even they won't quote.
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Google for red diesel suppliers - you can collect in 25L drums (some supply drums too) current price is similar to kerosene

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Square Leg said:

They need to crack on and get this moving..

https://www.prince-petroleum.co.uk/future-fuels/

A mate used to make his own bio diesel from waste veg oil and my VW T4 ran happily on it for several years - I suspect it is fussier than the average boiler

I never tried it in the boiler as heating oil was half the price at the time (45p)

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juggsy said:

Does anyone have any tips for securing oil tanks? I’m acutely aware that I have what feels like a tank of liquid gold in my garden, can only imagine targeting these will increase

There are tank alarms that sense the oil dropping - but it's a bit late then

I use twin IR beam alarms around my place, linked to a GSM module that calls me when triggered circa £180 but you need 240v both ends

There are cheap "Drive alarms" but they are so unreliable I wouldn't bother

I used to use "Alarms mines" trip wire that activates a blank shotgun cartridge - which are good if no one / no cats dogs in the area

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eldar said:

Time for me to plant willow in my field. 4 tons per acre per year, allegedly. After 3 years.

Maybe I've missed something - but no one buys Willow to burn it - I couldn't give it away last year, I just had a BIG bonfire

Logs have to be seasoned, hardwood and split to get a reasonable price for them IME most tree surgeons are happy to give wood away if you collect it same day from the site - saves them time

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eltawater said:

Most likely the boiler will go into lockout and you'll need a service engineer callout to sort it all out for you to bleed it all etc. There's always the risk that your water/scum layer isn't at the absolute bottom of your tank.

That may be a couple of hundred quid so, I cannot stress this enough, EXPENSIVE OIL IS BETTER THAN NO OIL AT ALL.

As the oil outlet hasn't changed if you weren't getting water before - you won't get it when you run out

I've helped a few friends who have run out - put 100L or so in the tank, suck it through if there isn't enough head in the system and a quick google for restart procedure

However what many do is tilt the tank toward the outlet to get some more oil out and obviously that could mean you're sucking water through

When I moved into my house I relocated the 2700L tank - after it was "empty" it had at 150L left in it, approx 75L was water but I suspect it hadn't been emptied in 20 yrs

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alscar said:

No one complained when oil dropped to 19ppl in May 2020. No one.

Am sure you are correct Mr Spoon although I would like to know who on here actually managed to get that price then ?
I am sad and keep a note of all prices paid per fill up going back years but in April 2020 I paid 38p and in December 2020 this had reduced to 32p. The cheapest I have ever paid is 25p which was back in September 2004.

The bit I don't understand is how prices can seemingly go up in the percentages being discussed on here within say 2 months RELATIVE to petrol prices which have only increased by a much smaller proportion.

I bought it at 17p, I recommissioned an old red diesel tank I had so I could buy an extra 2500L

BUT at the time crude oil was selling at a negative price !

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Mr Spoon said:

Let's pose another question, how much money do you think is fair, in whole numbers, for a distributor to make as gross profit on a delivery of 1000L of heating oil?

Remember, out of this profit, you have the costs for the HGV, the driver wages, storage and depot costs and their staff wages, as well as a plethora of other business costs.

Anyone care to make a guess?

I'd suggest the amount you make on average is fair, if it was excessive then more would enter the market

The amount that is currently being made is profiteering, which of course is your right but equally what some people get upset about

In the supposed "petrol crisis" there were long queues and stations rationed the amount allowed but they didn't massively increase prices (IIRC)

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Condi said:

No point being emotional about it, if you don't like the price you can find a cheaper supplier, buy nothing, or buy a different product.

In a rising market nobody wants to sell cheaply because it'll cost more to replace. Yes, the price today might be £1, but if you sell today at £1 and then have to buy tomorrow to replace stocks at £1.05 then you don't make much money.

I don't get emotional - I just bought a different product

It doesn't matter what it costs if you just keep adding the same margin on you'll keep making the same profit

What many appear to be doing is adding extra margin on

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I've got some on order but I thought I'd check BJ out of interest - still can't quote in Warwickshire

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sidekickdmr said:

Bj and Homefuels both not quoting for us at all for over a week now, and our local regular company is dry and not sure when more coming in!

We can go to the depot and buy 25l drums, @ £48 for 25L, time to see how many i can fit in my 4x4 I feel

£1.92 /L I'd be looking around for red diesel !

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CLX said:

Thanks both

If you google you'll see many have run on it for years without issue, I'm running on it now

It isn't optimum but it isn't an issue in mine and thousands of others experience

Similarly I've run my digger and dumper on heating oil, veg oil etc when needs must - they ran fine and still are

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Jaguar steve said:

+1. Get a price from BJ by all means but don't ever put any money in their pockets.

Instead find a couple of local suppliers who'll better the BJ price then play one off against the other to see who'll deliver the fastest if you're in a hurry.

The problem is everyone's experiences are different - boilerjuice has consistently been the cheapest for me for the past three years, with no issues whatsoever

Prior to that fuel tool was better but my local oil supplier has always been more expensive

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PushedDover said:

What an odd response.
Is it difficult, or just awkward, to respond to ?

He knows that if he gave an honest reply some would ask - how can you justify that

In fairness I have been asked the same about a car I'm selling for 17k when I bought it for 12k - the answer is because that's what someone will pay