N.S. heating oil companies adjusting to fluctuating prices

Many Maritime homes that use heating oil are feeling the pinch of high prices.

As the price of gas and oil continues to fluctuate around the world, some Nova Scotia home heating oil companies are trying to keep up.

“The wholesale price since March 1 when this started has gone up $0.47,” said James Farquhar, general manager of Scotia Fuels. “Retail has only gone up 37, but it’s just a constant battle every day trying to figure what the price is, what it’s going to be and then try to plan accordingly.”

Farquhar notes they’ve seen an uptick in people calling when they want a delivering instead of signing up for automatic fill-ups.

“We do have a minimum delivery, which is 450 litres, but today I actually had instructed my staff to drop it down to 250 litres just temporarily while things get adjusted in the world,” he said.

“The wholesale price is going up faster than the retail price, so that gets us squeezed. And then on top of that, we also have to buy a lot of gas and diesel just to run our vehicles.”

Farquhar said most customers have been understanding about the changing prices.

“They still want to exercise their right to complain about the price, but they’re not blaming anybody here. They’re just complaining.”

Homeowner George Scanlon says they’re understanding, but wishes it wasn’t this way.

“It’s terrible, but you got to heat your house,” Scanlon said. “There’s nothing you can do about it. Just complain like most people, I guess.”

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