Elgas customers pay the most for LPG bottles, Switchme says

Some LPG customers are paying $100 more than others, and Elgas is the most expensive, according to price comparison site Switchme.

One Elgas customer, who has tanker deliveries not LPG bottles, was so unhappy about the price he was being charged he wrote to Energy Minister Megan Woods asking her to investigate.

Scott O’Donnell, general manager at Switchme, said Elgas was the most expensive bottled LPG retailer. For 45kg LPG bottle deliveries, Elgas was charging up to $201, including GST. It was possible to get the same gas bottle delivered by other companies for between $104 including GST and $125 a bottle.

Differences in offers between retailers included a free bottle of gas, fixed price deals, or paying a monthly fee rather than an annual fee.

‘‘There is a big difference, if you’re comparing Elgas to other providers, that’s when people are quite shocked at how much they’re actually paying for exactly the same product,’’ O’Donnell said.

There were about 241,455 residential customers and 23,261 commercial customers for bottled LPG, according to GasNZ.

Frustrated customers were often prompted to have a look for other retailers if the price went up a few times over a year. With the rising cost of living people were particularly keen to save some money, he said.

‘‘If they can save a lot of money from gas bottles, it’s a good thing.’’

If a customer decided to switch suppliers, the change was managed by the retailers with the new company picking up the bottles and the customer not having to manage the changeover.

The company, which started in 2010, was an energy-switching site for electricity and natural gas, and had only offered LPG switching and comparison last year, he said.

Many of the offers were not standard or advertised on retailers’ websites, and it could be timeconsuming for customers to find the information they needed to change retailers.

‘‘It’s difficult to know often who the retailers are, because some electricity retailers offer the bottle gas, but then there’s a whole lot of separate retailers that offer it as well. And then there’s some sort of regional ones.’’

O’Donnell said the price range in bottled LPG was bigger than it would be for electricity.

‘‘It’s not often you’re going to compare electricity, and you got a $200 bill and find the same for $100. But it is possible with LPG gas.’’

An Elgas spokesperson said the company had a strong national supply network and infrastructure that enabled it to provide a ‘‘marketleading delivery service to our customers’’.

‘‘While recent global events have increased LPG pricing in New Zealand, we remain committed to providing competitive offers and loyalty programmes for both existing and new customers. We encourage customers to contact us directly to discuss their account.’’

According to a Canstar survey published in June, the monthly average bill for bottled gas was $116.

Contact Energy scored top for customer satisfaction out of the five companies in the survey, followed by Rockgas, Trustpower, Genesis with Elgas last. Trustpower was the only company to get five stars for value for money.

About a fifth (22%) of people had compared gas suppliers online, and 41% were satisfied they got a good deal on their gas, according to Canstar.

Elgas is owned by Australian company BOC, which is in turn owned by UK-headquartered industrial gas company Linde, which has annual sales of €26 billion (NZ$43b).