Andy and Mark get the Sodbury Fuels tanker on the road in Chipping Sodbury
Oxfordshire-based Nolan Oils has expanded with the addition of Sodbury Fuels, a brand new distributorship set up 70 miles away from its own base.
As many fuel oil distributors and their customers have struggled in the winter floods, others have taken advantage of the situation.
Nolan Oils alerted Fuel Oils News to an incident in Aylesbury where three men were arrested, with two charged after two suspicious vehicles were reported to have been seen on a driveway of a farm. Police stopped and searched a vehicle and found what was believed to be diesel siphoning equipment and six 25 litre drums.
For news from other distributors see the March issue of Fuel Oil News.
In Northern Ireland, over 50 tonnes of toxic waste was removed after three fuel laundering plants were found by HM Revenue and Customs in the Cullaville area of South Armagh. The plants were operating at two domestic premises and in an agricultural shed with the potential to produce 26 million litres of illicit fuel a year, evading £18 million in revenue.
Pat Curtis, national oils coordinator, HMRC, said: “It is wrong that honest businesses should be undercut by criminals and those involved in making or selling laundered fuel. Buying illicit fuel not only funds crime, it supports and encourages these dangerous activities within our communities. If anyone has information about fuel fraud we would encourage them to contact the Customs Hotline on 0800 59 5000.”
Follow HMRC on Twitter at @hmrcgovuk and see the Flickr channel at www.flickr.com/hmrcgovuk
Oil plays a very important role in our everyday lives – Certas Energy spreads the word with an educational programme in the areas in which it operates
Certas Energy has produced an educational programme to teach children about the role oil plays in everyday lives.
Working in collaboration with education provider Mad Science, scientific content to fit directly with the school curriculum was devised, creating a one hour educational workshop which has toured UK schools over the last two months. The workshop showed pupils how oil is made and looked at its importance in the local area.
“This public education initiative forms part of our corporate social responsibility strategy to reach our domestic customers,” said Emma Wordsworth, Certas Energy’s director of HR. “We have a large presence in the areas visited by these workshops, providing energy to homes and employing local people.
“We worked closely with local schools to ensure these workshops benefited children, their families and the wider community.” www.certasenergy.co.uk
This Port of Blyth site will soon have three new marine fuel storage tanks
Having constructed concrete bases for three new marine fuel storage tanks at the Bates Terminal at the Port of Blyth, infrastructure work including bund walls and access roads, is now underway.
“The Port of Blyth is a growing offshore energy hub with excellent deep water facilities in a strategically well-positioned location,” said managing director, Barry Newton. “We’re delighted that the construction of the fuel tanks themselves is now underway.”
Marine fuel supplier The Geos Group is developing the new fuel storage facility where each tank will have a capacity of 5 million litres. A specialist supplier of marine gas oil providing storage, supply, trading and logistics, Geos has terminals at Lerwick, Aberdeen, Peterhead, Heysham and the Thames. Bunkering teams in these locations operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Fuel is sourced ex-refinery and transported to terminals using the company’s dedicated tanker. With dedicated transport and storage on the Thames, the company offers supply to ports all around the south and southeast of England. Physical stock is also available for customers to collect ex-rack, using their own vehicles.www.geosgroup.com
(l-r) Ian Bainbridge, Janet Street Porter, Adam Warren, Antony Warren, and Jayne Winter, RDPE Area Manager (North East) at the Emerald Biogas AD facility in Newton Aycliffe
The north east’s first commercial food waste anaerobic digestion (AD) plant opened in County Durham with the writer and broadcaster as host.
Working with the private and public sector Emerald Biogas is recycling and reusing the region’s food waste to generate electricity, heat and bio-fertilisers at its £8 million facility.
Formed in 2009, Emerald Biogas is owned by three partners Antony and Adam Warren of John Warren ABP and Ian Bainbridge of Agricore.
Funding for the project was made available through the Rural Development Programme for England, which is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union.
The biogas produced is burned using Combined Heat and Power (CHP) technology to produce 1.56 MW per hour or enough energy to power 2,000 homes. Waste is collected from schools, food manufacturing companies, retailers and leisure outlets.
The north east generates over 800,000 tonnes of food waste every year, with over 80,000 tonnes of generated by schools. To tackle the growing problem of food waste, Emerald Biogas has taken its Waste Warriors: Food for Thought campaign into at schools.
“Food waste to landfill is a growing concern, with over 80 kilograms thrown away in a primary school each week,” said director Adam Warren. “Through our initiative, pupils have the opportunity to understand the problem of food waste and our innovative green energy solution. We collect the schools’ food waste to process, pupils then visit the plant to experience the food waste-processing journey in action.” www.emeraldbiogas.com
The Energy Institute (EI) has been working to improve the test methods for predicting winter performance of diesel fuels – especially those containing significant amounts of biodiesel.
One particularly important winter performance parameter is the cold soak filter blocking tendency of the fuel. The existing EI test method is IP PM-EA/08, Determination of filter blocking tendency of fatty acid methyl esters – cold soak and filtration method’.
The test method comprises of a sample pre-treatment step which involves warming the sample to 60°C (in order to remove its thermal history) before the cold soak. During the cold soak the sample is chilled to 5°C and held at this temperature for 16 hours. After the cold soak the filter blocking tendency is determined using IP 387 Procedure B.
The cold soak filterability test was further developed after a joint workshop between the EI and European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Working Group 31. Recent work by WG31 has targeted sources of variability in the procedure and a draft CEN method has been developed.
The EI has now incorporated all of the recent developments and enhancements into an updated proposed method – IP PM-EA/13. Significant enhancements to the method include changes to the sample preparation step and cold soak apparatus and the introduction of a verification standard.
This winter IP PM-EA/13 is being used by the fuels supply industry and other interested parties to feedback performance and user experiences to ensure the method is robust and fit for purpose. This will enable WG31 to further optimise the draft CEN test method. A precision study could then take place in 2014.
www.energyinstitute.org
To help raise awareness of the 20% of UK households living in fuel poverty and the need to make the country’s homes more energy efficient, OFTEC backed this month’s Cold Homes Week.
Launched by the Energy Bill Revolution (EBR), Cold Homes Week brought together more than 170 businesses, charities and organisations in support of ending fuel poverty. Along with other EBR supporters, OFTEC staff and technicians took part in The Big Tweet sending out tweets using the hashtag #ColdHomesWeek.
Local MPs were also urged to back the campaign to help bring down excess winter deaths, many attributed to rising fuel costs, which topped 31,000 in England and Wales last year.
OFTEC attended a parliamentary reception where knitted scarves, the symbol of the campaign, were presented to MPs to highlight the fuel poverty issue. EBR is urging the government to use the money it gets from carbon taxes to help make UK homes super-energy efficient, installing measures such as better insulation and modern boilers to drive down energy bills, keep homes warm and cut carbon emissions.
Director general, Jeremy Hawksley said: “With projections showing that the number of UK homes in fuel poverty is set to rise to one in three households by 2016, this is an issue which urgently needs addressing.
“Our Oilsave website contains lots of useful tips on becoming more energy efficient and OFTEC registered technicians can always provide well professional advice to homeowners. We also teamed up with Age UK to produce a booklet for older people, who are most at risk, to help them keep warm and well during the winter.”
Download the Age UK leaflet at www.oftec.org/consumers/keeping-warm-saving-money.
With many thousands of standard efficiency boilers in need of upgrade, OFTEC has written to the government calling for the introduction of a simple oil boiler scrappage scheme, similar to the one running successfully in Northern Ireland where over 7,770 subsidised oil boilers have already been installed.
Jeremy Hawksley concluded: “The government should be making it as easy and affordable as possible for homeowners to install modern condensing boilers which can save the average household up to 20% on fuel bills as well as cutting their carbon emissions. A simple move like this could go a long way towards bringing down fuel bills and reducing the number of people in the UK living in fuel poverty.”
www.oilsave.org.uk
The HID policy team at the Health and Safety Executive has announced that the Heavy Fuel Oil (Amendment) Regulations 2014 have been made and laid.
The regulations, which can be viewed at www.legislation.gov.uk/id/uksi/2014/162 came into force on Thursday 20th February 2014.
These regulations amend the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH), which apply across Great Britain. They also amend relevant planning law in England, in relation to which they also include transitional arrangements. The Scottish and Welsh governments are addressing planning considerations within their own planning regimes.
The COMAH Competent Authority has published guidance on heavy fuel oil – www.hse.gov.uk/comah/guidance/hfo-guidance.htm
With ‘exciting plans to grow capacity and the potential to create more jobs’, Pace Fuelcare’s Kings Lynn depot is officially opened
When Pace Fuelcare opened a brand new facility In Kings Lynn, more than 40 staff and guests, including the town’s major and the MP for North West Norfolk, were present to declare it open for business.
Over £1.5 million was invested in the depot’s upgrade and modernisation, enabling it to play a key role as an operational hub to better serve Pace Fuelcare’s commercial, agricultural and domestic customers across East Anglia.
General manager Simon Willis said: “We were delighted to welcome our local MP, Henry Bellingham, to our grand unveiling. The new site has state of the art storage facilities which are at the forefront of health & safety standards; this has increased the amount of product we can store and our capability to deliver to our customers as promptly as possible. We remain committed to our local area, both as a fuel supplier and a loyal supporter of community groups.”
Henry Bellingham, MP for North West Norfolk, said “Pace Fuelcare is a highly respected company and has an excellent record, particularly delivering for rural communities. The depot already employs 22 members of staff, and has exciting plans to grow capacity with the potential to create more jobs.”www.pacefuelcare.co.uk
Jeremy Hawksley speaking about Oilsave and the fight for oil heating at the Fuel Oil News Distributor Debate earlier this month. See the March issue of Fuel Oil News for more details.
The price difference between oil and gas has narrowed significantly. Three years ago oil was nearly 60% more expensive than mains gas but now it is just over 12% more expensive, based on using a condensing boiler.
According to the latest quarterly data from the Sutherland Tables, the current annual cost of using oil to heat a three bedroom home is now 5% lower than the average cost reported over the last three years, whereas the same average figures for homes using gas and electricity show an increase in heating costs of 14% and 16.5% respectively.the price of oil has decreased by 2.18%.
Directly comparing the price of heating a three bedroom home in January 2011 to January 2014 provides an even starker result and shows that electricity has seen the greatest price increase over the last three years at 38.89%. Similarly, gas prices have increased by 37.3% and solid fuels by 26.1% respectively, whereas in comparison, the price of oil has decreased by 2.18%.
The substantial increase in electricity prices (38.89%) is especially notable as it means that renewable technologies such as air source (ASHP) and ground source (GSHP) heat pumps which run on electricity are becoming a much more expensive option to heat a typical home in Britain.
LPG, used by some 170,000 off-grid households, remains the most expensive fuel, costing a three bedroom home with a condensing boiler £1,923 per annum compared to oil at £1,275 and gas at £1,136.
“This is very welcome news,” said Jeremy Hawksley, director general of OFTEC. “This data confirms that the estimated one million households that use oil to heat their homes have benefited from relatively consistent heating costs over the past three years and are currently experiencing a small decrease in prices.
“With the global oil markets stabilising and the supply of oil improving, we expect prices between heating oil and gas to continue to narrow – however, only time will tell on this.
“Oil users also have the advantage of choosing when to buy their oil, such as during summer months when prices are often lower, as well as purchasing through oil buying syndicates to secure more competitive prices. The figures also show that a modern condensing boiler can reduce annual running costs by an average of £284.”
