Micheál Hurley, owner of Hurley’s Fuel Centre, The Pike, Clonakilty, west Cork. Photograph: David Forsythe
Hurley’s Fuel Centre in Lisavaird near Clonakilty, West Cork has been a family business for more than 100 years but current owner Micheál Hurley cannot remember a time when prices have risen as rapidly as they have done over the past 12 months.
“We got a container of kiln-dried hard wood from Lithuanian yesterday, this time last year we were buying a crate for €100 for 1.2 cubic metres. Two months ago it went up to €150 and the stuff we got yesterday cost us €200. If I want another load I’ll probably be looking at €260,” he said.
Hurley’s provides a wide range of fuels including coal, smokeless coal, turf, briquettes, wood, kerosene, petrol and diesel. With a large warehouse — the building was once the old Lisavaird National School attended by Michael Collins — on-site Micheál is able to bulk-buy to offset some of the price increases but he says prices will only be going one way in the months ahead.
“This morning there now I bought petrol and diesel and there’s a difference of 20c a litre plus the VAT on unleaded today so why is that? I don’t know. I paid €2.01 plus VAT this morning so you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out it’s going to go up at the pump now to €2.06 maybe €2.07.
“At the moment fear of shortages and the sheer level of price increases we are seeing is making people think about stocking up despite the warm weather,” he said.
“People are buying coal but in a lot of cases they can’t afford to buy huge amounts either. I had a young fellah come in the other day and he was buying coal for his grandmother and coal is the only fuel she uses, it’s an old house. I was at €32 for a bag of coal and he had €300 to spend and imagine I couldn’t give him 10 bags of coal for that. You take a pensioner, that’s a lot of money, €300 and she got nine bags of coal.”
Pat Murnane, Operations manager with the West Cork-based Tria Oil Group said customers’ buying habits are changing in the current economic climate.
“We try to do all we can,” he told The Irish Times. “It’s important that people are not panicked, our supplies are reliable and we would ask people to talk to us if there are difficulties.”
Mr Murnane says that Tria’s own data shows that customers are ordering home heating oil on average 20 per cent less but making orders 23 per cent more often than a year ago.
He said “People are buying less but more often. Regular customers will ring who might usually fill the tank but when we tell them the price they might now only half fill the tank, people can be quite shocked when they realise how much it has gone up.
“It’s a very difficult time for a lot of people. Older people and families especially are under pressure and worried about the winter. Even looking at our own data we can see that there are people using our kerosene pumps — they are open 24 hours — at night much more than used to be the case, perhaps because they don’t want to be seen buying their home heating oil that way during the day.”
Micheál Hurley coal prices are also rising rapidly.
“This time last year I was buying coal from Coyles up in Buncranna — we were buying it off of them for €16.50. And the price today is €45.50 a bag, so that’s three times the price. We used to get three months’ credit from the coal guys, but now it has to be paid for on the day.”
Mr Hurley says he expects that the Government would take action and defer the ban on the sale of turf and bituminous coal this year.
“I’m a big lover of turf and I think for the year that’s in it, we all have to change, we can’t go again the tide, but like the Germans we’ve got to keep the show on the road.”
He said: “It’s going to be a tough cold winter, the fear of the unknown is what we all hate.”