Fuel Oil News

Fuel Oil News December 2011

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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2 0 1 2 SOU RC EB O OK The 2012 Sourcebook This Years Survey Offers Few Surprises BY K E I TH RE ID year) that provides a comparison benchmark. We received over 100 responses this year from a range of companies that scale from smaller dealers to some of the largest larger region- al operations. While some long term trends can be observed, some major changes were recently made in the survey struc- ture and the mix of respondents change year to year. So, each survey should be taken on its own merits. We provide up front the demographics of the specific respondent group. As part of the initial process we comb through the data to E 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 competi- tive landscape. For our readers' personal comparisons, when practical this year, we worked to provide two sets of data: one based on the overall average for the group, and another with the outliers removed (generally companies that well exceeded twice the full-group average). REGIONAL DEMOGRAPHICS (Table 1) 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 LESS THAN $1 MILLION $1 TO $5 MILLION $5 TO $10 MILLION $10 TO $25 MILLION $25 TO $50 MILLION MORE THAN $50 MILLION 20 RESPONSE PERCENT 10% 40% 20% 12% 10% 8% REVENUE (Table 2) From a revenue standpoint, the overwhelming numbers of respondents (40%) enjoy rev- enues between $1 million and $5 million. Some 20% had rev- enues $5 to $10 million. DECEMBER 2011 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com ACH YEAR FUEL OIL NEWS PROVIDES ITS READERS WITH its SourceBook Survey. The goal is to offer a snapshot of our readership (relative to the specific respondents that TABLE 1 REGIONAL DISPERSION OF THE RESPONDENTS NEW ENGLAND: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42% 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6% MIDWEST: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11% WEST: Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5% NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES (Table 3) The average operation for the full group featured about 46 employees. This was definitely driven by several companies that had many times the average in total number of employees, but not extraordinary figures for delivery drivers and service techni- cians. The second figure (included in parentheses) indicates the total when the outliers (companies at least twice as large as the gross average) are removed, if different. TABLE 3 NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES, INCLUDING YOURSELF 46 (13) SERVICE TECHNICIANS 5 (4) NUMBER OF DELIVERY DRIVERS 5 NUMBER OF NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS (Tables 4-5) Since not all companies supply commercial or propane custom- ers, the second figure included in parentheses moves away from the gross average to just include the average for the companies that serve those specific customers. All respondents supplied retail customers. TABLE 4 NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS NUMBER OF HOME-HEATING CUSTOMERS 2,904 TABLE 5 NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS (ADJUSTED) NUMBER OF HOME-HEATING CUSTOMERS 2,269 NUMBER OF COMMERCIAL/ INDUSTRIAL CUSTOMERS 176 (195) PROPANE CUSTOMERS 500 (1,602) NUMBER OF NUMBER OF COMMERCIAL/ INDUSTRIAL CUSTOMERS 239.91 (262) PROPANE CUSTOMERS 1,015 (2,690) NUMBER OF

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