User-refillable gas bottles

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

At the Birmingham show I noticed that MTH Autogas were exhibiting a small steel refillable gas bottle. This had a capacity of 12 litres (6kg) of autogas, a remote-fill capability and a price of £140. The container differs from the significantly cheaper Gaslow bottles, having a separate safety-valve in the upper surface and an inset pressure-gauge. Design-wise, it's a miniature version of the 23 litre canister shown on the firm's website (www.mthautogas.co.uk) I asked for news of the 80% stop-fill valve that had been promised for MTHA's composite bottles. Apparently, this is imminent and previous purchasers of these containers will be contacted as soon as it's available. As well as being suitable for the latest composite bottles (now re-liveried in a fetching green outer shell), the valve can be retrofitted to existing bottles at a cost of around £21. I understand the process involves complete replacement of the present top-of-bottle shut-off-valve assembly. The addition of a stop-fill valve to these composite containers will make topping-up much easier: however, it will continue to be impossible to fit a remote filler. By the way, while searching for the MTHA website address, I chanced on a news item titled "Calor's advice on refilling gas cylinders" on www.ukmotorhomes.net/news.shtml If you've got, or are thinking about getting, a user-refillable bottle, this makes interesting reading - particularly the comments from Calor.

[Guest Clive]

Derek, Re the ongoing saga re re-fillable gas bottles I smell a large rat. It was not that long ago when professionally fitted bulk LPG tanks for powering road vehicles had ullage valves, this being a valve that one opened during filling to vent gas so that when 80% full was reached liquid came out to indicate that filling should stop. This leaks far more gas around a garage forecourt than todays re-fillable cylinders properly filled. I don,t know of any reported problems associated with this practice as yet. I suspect that the real reason Calor are putting up such a fight is to save their profit margin. LPG costs at the pump being one third of the cost of an equivalent Calor refil. Its the BIG firms trying to crush the small operator with their convienient interpretation of legal gobledygook.

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

Who's arguing? As you say, every time someone buys a refillable bottle, or LPG tank, there's bound to be an adverse financial impact on the exchangeable-bottle market (be that impact ever so small). If I was in Calor's shoes and had the clout (and a viable excuse) to prevent people from refilling their bottles at autogas outlets I wouldn't hesitate for a moment. It would be sensible business practice as far as I'm concerned. I have a touch of sympathy for Calor. It's easy to compare autogas prices with Calor-bottle refills, but the comparison is not really valid. When you exchange Calor bottles, you are not only buying the LPG but buying into the Calor infrastructure that provides pre-filled, safety-tested bottles at thousands of outlets UK-wide. So one should certainly expect a healthy mark-up.

[Guest Norma]

I assume that if Calor are getting touchy about these cylinders the sales of refillable cylinders are going up!

[Guest Clive]

Our local Autogas station is Shell / Calor. So they are hedging their bets with feet in both camps. And the price difference is 3:1 which is not small! They will eventually lose as people soon find that you can actually re-fil a normal calor / Altagas / Shell / anybody's bottle if done with care. That's how Calor do it themselves anyway. i.e. 6Kg bottle put in 12 litres. This leaves you at 80%. The adaptor to screw on the top is not rocket science! If you get the jist, I don't like BIG BROTHER whielding his muscle. To the revolution!

[Guest Bill]

I should lke to see Calor reported to the Office of Fair Trading

[Guest patrick winks]

some time ago there was an item, on this forum I think, about BP bringing out a Europe wide bottle. They were testing in one or two countries before general release, does anyone know if anything came of it?

[Guest Derek Uzzell]

Patrick: Yes, the BP "Gas Light" bottle was mentioned on 02/06/2004 (search forum on "BP") and a brief Google search suggests current availability in Austria and the UK. I checked the nearest UK Gas Light distributor to my home in Ross-on-Wye and this was at Chepstow over 20 miles away. This compares badly with Calor's UK network, where there are three outlets within a 2-mile radius of Ross. Frankly, I could never see Gas Light getting off the ground where motorcaravanning was concerned - the container is large and uses a 27mm clip-on connector, neither feature being particularly helpful for motorhomes. Then there's the question of the actual extent of BP's European network. It seems to me that the user-refillable bottle (or tank) is the logical choice for motorcaravanners who travel widely abroad, as gas supplies will not be restricted to a particular fuel company but will (potentially) be available from any service-station selling autogas. (It might be interesting to ask BP what's happening with Gas Light, but I'm not going to do it!)