News: Brexit impacts home heating oil prices this winter
20th October 2016
Having experienced a long and comfortable period where oil was at its lowest level for 5 or 6 years, Brexit may well have had a long term impact on what we will all pay for our home heating oil this winter.
Following the Brexit referendum, we were all lulled into believing that it was 'business as usual' - with no real impact or change reflected in the result that Great Britain was to exit the EU. However....... Teresa May's latest announcement that article 50 would be invoked, probably in the early part of 2017, has sent the pound into a downward spiral. The impact is particularly hard felt in the area of products bought in a market controlled by the US Dollar, crude oil for example.
The economic arguments for and against Brexit in the course of the referendum campaign were both contradictory and confusing to the average voter. Similarly, sterling’s current decline in the currency markets, particularly against the US Dollar and Euro, might seem like the kind of thing that only concerns City traders. It does not.
Similarly, the row that has broken out between Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, and Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch multinational, has made the story much more real in ways that were not particularly clear before. Unilever wants to raise prices across goods to reflect the fall in the pound, which has dropped from around $1.50 on the day of the referendum to less than $1.22 currently. Similar falls have been seen against the euro; indeed travellers who change their money now are experiencing much more expensive holiday costs as a consequence.
The row is centered on Marmite, the yeast-based spread that is loved by some, but not all. But Marmite isn’t the best example as it is made in this country. PG Tips, one of Britain’s favourite tea brands is a better example as that is grown overseas.
So, our advice - put the kettle on whilst you check the level of your oil tank and if necessary, order some oil via our web site whilst having a cuppa, be that PG Tips or another equally refreshing brand!
Prices are unlikely to go downwards at the moment and winter demand can only make them go up.