Price of veg oil

[Ivan]

I noticed in Tesco's last night that the price of basic vegetable oil (rape oil) is now 63p/litre.  This compares with sunflower oil at 65p/litre - surely not a natural price ratio?! Previously, sunflower oil has been considerably more expensive than basic veg oil (rape oil). The rape oil price seems pretty consistent in all of the supermarkets I have been to recently.

Given that the rape oil has increased in price much faster than sunflower oil, perhaps it is a direct response to people purchasing it for fuel?

Has anyone seen anything published to this effect?

By the time you declare and pay the duty (28p/litre?), the price will be 91p - near enough the same as conventional diesel!

[Amy]

Hi All

There is a place here in birmingham city centre where they sell rape oil/fuel at 75p per litre and thats all duty paid and its certified suitable for use.
Many local taxi drivers are filling up there so it must be ok, and i put £10 worth in several months ago with no ill effects.
The guy did say that because of its cleansing properties it pays to change the fuel filter after 200 miles initially as all the residues in the system will be loosened and caught in the filter.
After that, service as per normal

This is a saving of approx £1.00 per gallon, ...........£12.00 per tank full

[Ivan]

Are they selling veg oil or biodiesel?

[Ted]

I've noticied the close link between the market price of veg oil and pump price of diesel for about the past 2 years.

[Amy]

Are they selling veg oil or biodiesel?

Sorry I should have mentioned thay are selling it as rape oil based bio diesel

[KenB]

Ivan & List,

When I started my Lister engine activities 2 years ago,  you could buy a litre of veg oil (rapeseed) in Lidl's for 32p.

It rapidly went up to 45p /litre as my early 2005 webpage discloses

http://www.geocities.com/wastewatts/listers.html

I suspect that the supermarkets have been told to stop selling it as a loss leader, as a means of discouraging the casual customer from pouring it into their diesel car fuel tanks.

However, the diesel engine is quite happy to use filtered waste vegetable oil, and this can still be bought in bulk for about 30p/litre from the likes of Arrow Oils, JP Oils (Southampton) and other companies in the waste vegetable oil recovery business.


Ken

[Fiat]

Hi Do you live near a costco s the new veg oil is £10 50 for 20 litirs i hope this helps in your quest for cheaper and greena cleaner motoring
Regards Frank

[stephen]

Dont forget to add the Duty

[Ivan]

I noted in Asda yesterday that they had dropped their veg oil price down to 58p/litre. This cannot be related to fuel costs, as petrol and diesel have just gone up a few pence per litre.

[NickW]

Given that the supply of agricultural land is fixed and demand is rising the price rise of veg oil is fairly predictable.

My main concern is that the drive to use 'biofuels' will just hasten the demise of tropical rain forests as they are replaced with palm oil plantations.

Don't get me wrong I think using WVO as a fuel is great - not so sure about growing crops specifically as transport fuel.

[Ivan]

I have mixed views:

1. They tend to grow palm oil in the tropics, and this is probably the worst stock for biodiesel conversion - so I assume that increased farming of palm oil would not be initiated by the road biofuel industry. I imagine that palmoil production is proliferated through demand for cheap foodstock, rather than fuelstock -  though I could be wrong.

2. A lot of people say food should go before fuel - ie concentrate of providing everyone with a food supply rather than fuel for vehicles. I agree with the principle, but we have to remember that most (if not all) farming processes require more energy in terms of fuel (red diesel, LPG, electricity, energy-hungry pesticides and fertilisers etc) than they produce in terms of food energy. On that basis, it would be more efficient (if possible) to turn the fuel energy directly into food energy, and bypass photosynthesising plants, animals and the ecosystem altogether. I think we need to develop energy efficient farming processes - otherwise when the oil runs out, the food does too.

3. We have a LOT of setaside land in the UK and Europe - surely this could be used for biofuel production rather than left idle.


Ivan

[KenB]

List,

Sainsbury's have raised the price of their 3 litre containers to £1.98 an overnight increase of 10p per litre.

Unusually, the 1 litre bottles of Pura oil are still at the original price of 56p.

I believe that this is in direct response to the price of diesel rising to around £1.00 per litre in the last week, as an attempt to discourage the "casual use" of SVO in diesel cars.

For anyone wanting to pour SVO direct into the car tank, 3 litre containers are a lot more convenient than 1 litre containers.

Anyone else notice other suppliers jacking up the price of the 3 litre bottles?




Ken

[pogster]

Tesco put up their price of standard Veggie oil to around £1.80 ish a couple of weeks ago - could be more now.

Costco is still be far the cheapest with 20l for £10 (or therabouts)

[itsnewtome]

Sorry to sound thick
Why do you have do declare  that you are using it and pay a further tax??
Is it not up to you how you choose to run your vehicle/ do with your veg oil??

[Plottman]

Ah thats like using red diesel ! vy serious offence, do what you like "off road" on the road thou shalt pay tax on fuel!