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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28 December 2014 | FUeL OIL NeWS | www.fueloilnews.com BUSINESS OPERATIONS The 2015 Sourcebook Readership Survey By KeiTh Reid E ach year Fuel Oil News provides its readers with its Sourcebook Readership Survey. The goal is to offer a snap- shot of our readership (relative to the specific respondents that year) that represents a comparison benchmark. We received nearly 130 total responses this year from a range of companies that scale from smaller dealers to some of the largest larger regional operations. Our staff would like to thank those who participated. Your help with the survey helps both your operations and the industry as a whole by supporting this useful project. While some long-term trends can be observed, the mix of respondents changes year to year. So, each survey should be taken on its own merits. We do provide, up front, a picture of the demo- graphics of the specific respondent group. 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 diversi- fied 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 assump- tions are accurate. However, both the typical smaller fuel oil dealer and large regional diversified petroleum and fuel-oil specific mar- keters are part of the industry's competitive landscape. Responses are also rounded to an even number. 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. reveNUe From a revenue standpoint (and as has been the case for several years now), the majority of respondents (49%) enjoy revenues between $1 million and $5 million. Following that, some 35% had revenue between $5 to $25 million. NUmber OF empLOyeeS The average operation for the full group featured about 24 employees. This was driven by both some very large outliers and a number of very small operations. NUmber OF cUStOmerS SOUrceS OF reveNUe Retail fuel oil was, not surprisingly, a primary source of income for 88% of respondents. Some 27% provided bulk fuel oil and 29% provided propane service and 81% HVAC sales and service. Additional sources of income included: lubricants, generator sales & service, diesel, mini roll-offs, plumbing and Kerosene. FUeL OIL SaLeS by vOLUme When looking at the percentage of fuel oil sales by volume, it is similarly not surprising that roughly 81% of that volume goes to residential customers. TABLE 1 rEgionAL dispErsion of ThE rEspondEnTs nEW EngLAnd: Maine, new hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, rhode island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49% Mid-ATLAnTiC: new York, new Jersey, pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, delaware, Washington, d.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39% soUTh: Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, north Carolina, south Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, georgia, florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5% MidWEsT: ohio, indiana, illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, north dakota, south dakota, nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6% WEsT: oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, new Mexico, idaho, Utah, Arizona, nevada, Washington, oregon, California, Alaska, hawaii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1% TABLE 2 rEVEnUE LEss ThAn $1 MiLLion 12% $1 To $5 MiLLion 37% $5 To $10 MiLLion 25% $10 To $25 MiLLion 10% $25 To $50 MiLLion 8% MorE ThAn $50 MiLLion 8% TABLE 3 nUMBEr of EMpLoYEEs nUMBEr of EMpLoYEEs, nUMBEr of nUMBEr of inCLUding YoUrsELf sErViCE TEChniCiAns dELiVErY driVErs 24 6 8 TABLE 4 nUMBEr of CUsToMErs nUMBEr of nUMBEr of CoMMErCiAL/ nUMBEr of hoME-hEATing CUsToMErs indUsTriAL CUsToMErs propAnE CUsToMErs 3,491 395 4,297 TABLE 5 rEVEnUE soUrCEs rETAiL fUEL oiL 88% BULK fUEL oiL 27% rETAiL gAsoLinE 23% BULK gAsoLinE 21% Lgp/Lng, rETAiL or BULK 29% hEATing EqUipMEnT sALEs 81% Air-CondiTioning EqUipMEnT sALEs 52%