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
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/730356
36 OCTOBER 2016 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com Rose presided over the show, held at the Holiday Inn in Boxborough, Mass., for the last time. Rose is retiring, though he will still be a presence, serving as a con- sultant to his yet-to-be-hired successor. The next Northeast Propane Show, which is held every other year, will be in 2018. At this year's show the educational program spanned both days of the Aug. 10-11 event and featured a broad range of presenters and subjects, including sessions on: how to use multi-meters; managing inventory; combustion analysis; opera- tion of a vaporizer; relief valve sizing and operation; procedures for a bobtail creep test; new technology; best practices in col- lections; and tank monitoring. H a n k S m i t h , v i c e p r e s i d e n t o f Independent Technologies-Wesroc in Blair, Neb., said propane dealers can use tank monitors to increase revenue, lower costs and manage assets more efficiently. "Most important is that monitoring helps you keep existing customers and get new ones," Smith said in an interview follow- ing the show. "You're in the business of delivering fuel. What does it cost you when you lose a customer? What does it cost to get a new customer?" With respect to revenue, Smith said, "it's not so much that you're making money selling a monitoring service to your customers. It's the business that you're generating or keeping because you have monitors. And it differentiates you from your competitors." Northeast Propane Show T he Northeast Propane Show provided an opportunity for 1,400 exhibitors and attendees to "get some edu- cation, see some new products, ask a lot of questions and go home excited about what they do, ready to grow their business," said Joe Rose, president of the Propane Gas Association of New England. A fuel marketer doesn't need a moni- toring system for will-call customers, Smith pointed out. "If your customers all call you when they need fuel, then you don't need monitors." But propane marketers often have "keep-full" cus- tomers who expect their fuel provider to keep their tank full without needing to be called, Smith noted. "If you have spo- radic-usage customers it's very hard to do that with software and degree days," Smith said. "A monitor makes it very easy to do that because it tells you exactly what the fuel level is in the tank." Smith recommended that dealers do their homework before choosing a tank monitoring system. "Make sure the vendor has the correct certifications," he said. "Check with some of your peers in the industry to see what they say about different monitoring systems." Smith recounted some business cases—companies that had deployed tank monitoring. The most striking case involved a propane dealer that deployed 5,000 monitors on "extremely busy, high- usage tanks," and projected that, in the first year, it would save 45,000 deliveries. It found that after one year it had saved 48,000 deliveries, Smith said. Accounts with unpredictable usage patterns might be residential custom- ers that have swimming pool heaters or propane gas fireplace logs. "Say you're at home and you say, 'Oh honey, I'm going Joe Rose (right), president of the Propane Gas Association of New England, being rec- ognized for "exceptional energy" during his years of service by Roy Willis, president and CEO of the Propane Education & Research Council, at the Northeast Propane Show. Propane marketers and equipment vendors convened in Boxborough, Massachusetts BY STEPHEN BENNETT