The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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Industry Study The 2014 Sourcebook Our annual snapshot of the industry I t's time once again for the annual Fuel Oil News Sourcebook. The goal is to offer a snapshot of our readership (relative to the specific respondents that year) that represents a comparison benchmark. We comb though the data to eliminate failed survey responses. Within the accepted data, some respondents might be smaller dealer operations, and others larger marketer/wholesaler operations that are far from typical and that might only operate home heating oil delivery and service as a division of a much larger and more diversified operation. This survey is confidential and we cannot (nor would we) specifically identify the companies that provided a response, but a thoughtful look at the outliers would suggest the above assumptions are accurate. However, both the typical smaller fuel oil dealer and large regional diversified petroleum and fuel oil specific marketers are part of the industry's competitive landscape. Outliers that are significantly skewed in either direction are removed and in some cases the responses are averaged with previous year if that specific question failed to elicit a notable response rate. Regional Demographics From a regional perspective, and as is typically the case, the vast majority of respondents were from New England or the Mid-Atlantic states. TABLE 2 Revenue Response Percent less than $1 million 10% $1 to $5 million 42% $5 to $10 million 17% $10 to $25 million 20% $25 to $50 million 3% more than $50 million 8% Number of Employees The average operation featured about 17 employees. The average number of residential heating oil customers was 3,720. TABLE 3 Number of Employees Number of employees,Number ofNumber of including yourself service technicians delivery drivers 17 6 6 Number of Customers TABLE 4 Number of Customers Number of Number of commercial/Number of home-heating customers industrial customers propane customers 3,720 45 1,333 TABLE 1 regional dispersion of the respondents NEW ENGLAND: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46% MID-ATLANTIC: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Washington, D.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36% SOUTH: Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0% MIDWEST: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9% WEST: Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9% Sources of Revenue Retail fuel oil was, not surprisingly, a primary source of income for 97% of respondents. Some 25% provided bulk fuel oil and 86% HVAC sales and service. Propane and gasoline (retail and bulk) TABLE 5 Revenue Sources From a revenue standpoint (and as has been the case for several years now), the overwhelming numbers of respondents (42%) enjoy revenues between $1 million and $5 million. 20 December 2013 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com 97% Bulk fuel oil Revenue Retail fuel oil 25% Retail gasoline 32% Bulk gasoline 30% LGP/LNG, retail or bulk 43% Heating equipment sales 86% Air-conditioning equipment sales 75%