Domestic Heating Oil 'Scandal'

[trousers]

Out here in deepest darkest Devon there's no mains gas supply to our village / town, ergo we rely on oil  deliveries. 

Unlike electricity and gas supplies, the domestic oil sector is effectively unregulated. Hence the typical cost of domestic heating oil has shot up to around 133 pence per litre, up from circa 60 ppl a week ago.

I'm led to believe that oil companies typically have a 3 month stock of domestic heating oil, so they're now selling that stock at over double the price, despite it not having cost them any more (yet).

Surely there's got to be some kind of regulation brought in to stop oil companies blatantly profiteering in these situations?

Approximately 1.5 million people in the UK rely on domestic heating oil supplies, so it's not an insignificant issue.

I'm not a fan of over-bearing regulation but surely there has to be some kind of protection from such blatant racketeering...? Why are gas and electricity consumers protecting by price-capping, but oil users aren't...?

P.s. I've also heard / read examples of oil companies cancelling pre-existing orders at the previous price and attempting to re-book at the new price... 

#scumbags

#cartel

 

Edited 10 hours ago by trousers

[Sheaf Saint]

Supply and demand innit.

I imagine loads of people will have immediately put an extra order in to fill up now before the inevitable wholesale price rises, just like the people who take their range rovers to petrol stations and fill up 3 or 4 jerrycans.

But I agree, it does have a horrible stench of disaster capitalism about it.

[Weston Super Saint]

Do you have electricity or do you need to buy that in buckets?

If you do, why are you using oil? Just get electric heating...

[Holmes_and_Watson]

2 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Do you have electricity or do you need to buy that in buckets?

If you do, why are you using oil? Just get electric heating...

SaintsWeb Warning: If buying electricity in buckets, don't use metal ones!

Rolls 1970's traumatic public information film, where young Timmy is sent out to buy energy with the family bucket.

[The Kraken]

2 hours ago, trousers said:

P.s. I've also heard / read examples of oil companies cancelling pre-existing orders at the previous price and attempting to re-book at the new price... 

I was witness to exactly this with a chap from work. He had booked an oil delivery for late last week and they didn’t show up, then when they rescheduled the price had gone up by almost double. He was on the phone with them for a while and I think the last I heard he had haggled them down to 80p a litre. Absolute racket though, profiteering scumbags.

[Baird of the land]

I assume these companies have to keep making advance orders for the future deliveries though, so costs of those have likely surged. Surely you need to see what current wholesale cost is to see if they are just covering their higher costs or profiteering on the crisis.

[trousers]

Edited 6 hours ago by trousers

[trousers]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Do you have electricity or do you need to buy that in buckets?

If you do, why are you using oil? Just get electric heating...

We 'escaped to the country' 5 years ago and heating oil (Kerosene) just seems to be the norm in rural areas. I'm assuming that's because it's more efficient / cost effective than electric heating systems. In fact, we have a couple of annexes that aren't connected to the central heating system, so we have to use electric heaters in there during the winter, and our electricity bill skyrockets as a result. 

Edited 7 hours ago by trousers

[trousers]

35 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

I assume these companies have to keep making advance orders for the future deliveries though, so costs of those have likely surged. Surely you need to see what current wholesale cost is to see if they are just covering their higher costs or profiteering on the crisis.

Yes, I accept what they're buying wholesale now will be more expensive,  but they'll be selling their existing stock first, which they bought at half the price months ago....

Anyway, that's by-the-by... the question I'm asking is: why do some consumer fuels get the benefit of price capping and regulation, and others don't? Why the inconsistency and how is that justifiable?

Edited 7 hours ago by trousers

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Do you have electricity or do you need to buy that in buckets?

If you do, why are you using oil? Just get electric heating...

Don't be stupid, they use Davy lamps in that part of the world.

[ChrisPY]

1 hour ago, Baird of the land said:

I assume these companies have to keep making advance orders for the future deliveries though, so costs of those have likely surged. Surely you need to see what current wholesale cost is to see if they are just covering their higher costs or profiteering on the crisis.

That works if they immediately pass on the reduction when prices drop which almost certainly won’t happen.

[trousers]

10 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Don't be stupid, they use Davy lamps in that part of the world.

True 😂 

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

We 'escaped to the country' 5 years ago and heating oil (Kerosene) just seems to be the norm in rural areas. I'm assuming that's because it's more efficient / cost effective than electric heating systems. In fact, we have a couple of annexes that aren't connected to the central heating system, so we have to use electric heaters in there during the winter, and our electricity bill skyrockets as a result. 

And yet....

[trousers]

13 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

And yet....

And yet what...?

[Weston Super Saint]

1 minute ago, trousers said:

And yet what...?

And yet, you're telling us it's not cheaper, but much more expensive!

Have you considered solar panels and battery storage?  Air source heat pump?  You can even get Gov't grants for those to save money as well as the planet  

[trousers]

8 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

And yet, you're telling us it's not cheaper, but much more expensive!

It's only become more expensive at the moment because oil companies aren't subject to the same regulations and price capping as electricity and gas companies. If those companies were free to do what they liked, then electricity and gas prices would have skyrocketed too. 

Which is the whole point of the thread: we should have consistent regulation and price capping across all domestic fuel suppliers. If we did, then oil prices would be competitive with electricity and gas prices during wars, as well as during 'normal' times.

Sigh.

Edited 5 hours ago by trousers

[trousers]

9 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Have you considered solar panels and battery storage?  Air source heat pump?  You can even get Gov't grants for those to save money as well as the planet

Why would I want to save the planet given the number of idiots that live on it...?

[Gloucester Saint]

2 hours ago, trousers said:

We 'escaped to the country' 5 years ago and heating oil (Kerosene) just seems to be the norm in rural areas. I'm assuming that's because it's more efficient / cost effective than electric heating systems. In fact, we have a couple of annexes that aren't connected to the central heating system, so we have to use electric heaters in there during the winter, and our electricity bill skyrockets as a result. 

That’s why we didn’t buy a property in Northleach up here because its properties are oil heating and yes, the cost of electric static heaters is hideous. 

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

And yet, you're telling us it's not cheaper, but much more expensive!

Have you considered solar panels and battery storage?  Air source heat pump?  You can even get Gov't grants for those to save money as well as the planet  

Bloody love ours.

[Weston Super Saint]

2 hours ago, trousers said:

It's only become more expensive at the moment because oil companies aren't subject to the same regulations and price capping as electricity and gas companies. If those companies were free to do what they liked, then electricity and gas prices would have skyrocketed too. 

Which is the whole point of the thread: we should have consistent regulation and price capping across all domestic fuel suppliers. If we did, then oil prices would be competitive with electricity and gas prices during wars, as well as during 'normal' times.

Sigh.

I've offered you a viable alternative to the oil price scam and all you can do is sigh!

Seems like you're complaining about something you have no interest in changing. 

If you looked for alternatives you wouldn't be scammed by the oil companies. Seems like a pretty simple solution that you want to ignore!

[Farmer Saint]

2 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Bloody love ours.

Unfortunately our place, being a 250 year old farmhouse, is not suitable for them. However, we do have 16KW of solar panels and a 20kw battery which means in the Summer our bills are about £9 a month with our buy back tariff.

[suewhistle]

There's no type of house that is unsuitable, since an inefficient, badly insulated property will be so regardless of the heating source, although individual circumstances might prevent an ASHP. 

But most talk is about wet systems where there are issues, particularly trying to adapt an existing installation. It might be worth looking into Air to air (A2A) where you could dip a toe in the water quite cheaply and simply from an installation point of view. Perhaps just start with your main living room as an experiment. 

I hope to go A2A this summer, keeping gas for the first winter and then removing the rads and gas meter (and standing charge!) should the experiment go well. My 3 bedroom property is well insulated and I'll probably only go for a split with one emitter downstairs and one upstairs. The latter would be more more cooling in summer heatwaves, which is of course the other advantage of A2A.

I also have PV but no battery and this should certainly help during the shoulder months.