Fuel supplier tells of 'pandemonium' since Iran war began - leading to him losing money despite oil price spike
An oil supplier in Co Armagh says it has been “pandemonium” since the US-led military action against Iran began, with unprecedented “panic buying” from customers.
Andy Douglas, who runs Andy’s Oil outside Portadown, said he has been getting perhaps 300 phone calls a day from customers when he would normally expect about 20 or 30.
And despite the price of home heating oil going through the roof, he has actually been losing money, he said.
That is because he would agree to deliver to a customer at one price on a particular day, but by the time he went to buy the oil from the wholesaler the next day, it cost more than he quoted the customer.
To make matters worse, the sole other person working at the firm had booked this week off on holiday, meaning he is alone in handling orders and deliveries.
With the weather having improved calls had started to “slack off” last week, so he had been expecting perhaps “20 to 30 phone calls and messages” come Monday this week.
Instead he said: “It’s been crazy. Chaos is probably another appropriate word.
“It’s just absolute pandemonium with panic buying – the largest ever volume of calls in one day.
“On Monday whenever I turned the phone on, I probably took 200 to 300 phone calls while trying to deliver, and maybe upwards of 100 messages as well on WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS.
"For every one phone call I was taking there was about five people trying to get through at the same time."
He added: "I have no storage tanks – I just lift my fuel daily down at the Belfast oil terminal.
"So the oil I’m delivering today I collected this morning, and paid for at today’s price.
"The problem is that whenever the panic buying started, I was still quoting people well below what it has cost me to buy the oil today.
"The last customer I was at there paid £605 for the oil I’d quoted them, and their oil cost me this morning over £800.
"So there’s a £200 loss. And that’s just one of 37 calls [I have to make] today.”
He said: “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have accepted the orders at the time, but I didn’t know it was going to be so bad, I didn’t know my buying price was going to rise so much.”
He added: "I’d say there’s a lot in my position, as well.”
Mr Douglas has been in business since 2013, and saw a huge spike in price and demand when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February 2022.
“It was similar, but probably not just as rapid or as immediate,” he said.
"It was a slower rise in the price. It rose further, but it was a slower rise, and there wasn’t the same panic buying.”
He believes that with that 2022 war-driven spike fresh in many memories, customers were trying this time to get their purchases in early as a new war broke out.
There had been talk of companies “profiteering” off the oil spike.
"The profiteering certainly isn’t on my side,” said Mr Douglas.
"I’ve done 16 hours work every day this week and the last two days has been for about minus £1,000 per day.
"I don’t know how many people would go out and work 16 hours for a big loss.”
He said “in oil supply, there’s always some good times and bad times” – and this is just one of the latter.
He advised members of the public that the price hikes have now taken place and he expects the price will stabilise, so “there’s no point” in panic buying.