Letters / Heating oil quandary?
We were due a delivery of heating oil this week. When the local delivery office said the price per litre had doubled, we cancelled the order.
With no piped gas available in the isles, there will be many in Shetland having to top up their tank at these exorbitant prices.
The local delivery office are selling oil they have in stock, that they bought at a lower price before the US and Israel attack on Iran. These companies should be made to justify this increase, it seems like a situation is being exploited.
On Friday the oil producing companies initially withdrew from a meeting with the UK government about price gouging, taking advantage of these types of situations. This attitude is not very encouraging for those paying heating oil bills.
Everyone is suffering with the cost-of-living crisis, time for the UK government to give folk a break. They hold a strategic reserve; this should be released as heating oil in the islands and rural areas.
The shipping traffic currently held up at the Strait of Hormuz represents 20% of world production, so what is happening with the other 80%?
Prices at the petrol stations have also jumped. Again, they are selling oil already in stock, that they have previously paid for, so how do they justify that?
As many have pointed out, these blips in the oil supply are not a new thing, for instance it happened when Russia invaded Ukraine, but they always seem to be a shock to the system with customers left in the lurch.
Surely, there should be, at least, a price cap plan, and or other protections in place for the next oil event.
The UK is paying among the highest electricity prices in the world, and Shetland, and the north of Scotland, is paying the highest electricity prices in the UK – a bit of an irony given that we have wind farms, a gas terminal and an oil terminal.
But it is worse, we can look out the North Sea and wonder what are the thought processes of the UK and Edinburgh governments in trying to close down activity in these oil fields. So near, and yet so far!
Brian Nugent
Alliance to Liberate Scotland candidate
