By David MacDonald
david@peicanada.com

Eastern PEI homeowners will have several new options to purchase smaller amounts of furnace oil later this week.
Jeff Mellish, a Montague native who now lives in Charlottetown, has recently established Feasible Fuels, which will deliver orders from as low as 100 litres to the Charlottetown area as well as Montague, Cardigan and Georgetown. Many major oil companies will only deliver a minimum 100 gallon order.
At the same time, Montague Esso is currently installing a furnace oil tank which is expected to be operational by the end of this week or early next week at the latest.
Mr Mellish said after receiving clearances from the Irving Oil Terminal in Charlottetown, he’d be picking up his first truckload of oil on Tuesday at 8am. He will be selling his oil at $1.06.3 cents a litre, which is the maximum price set by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission.
“I have 25 firm orders,” Mr Mellish said. “Quite a few have ordered 100 litres and a few have ordered 200 litres, while some are ordering dollar amounts such as $200.”
Mr Mellish said he went through several hurdles to get Feasible Fuels off the ground, including getting proper certification and insurance for his truck, which will be operated by an experienced driver.
He said the response has been “tremendous” since he advertised on Facebook last Saturday. He hopes to keep his costs down by travelling to specific areas once a week. The business will operate on a cash on delivery basis, but Mr Mellish will accept debit and credit cards.
Mr Mellish said there is a demand for his service and he wants to give people more options, but it’s just a question as to whether the business will be viable by delivering low volumes of oil to customers. He said he’ll know in a few months.
“If I can make this work, I’ll expand the service (to other areas).”
Doug MacDonald, operations manager of Wilson’s Fuels, which owns the Montague Esso, said there is much demand on this end of the Island for furnace oil at the pump. He knows of cases where local individuals have driven all the way to the Queens Arms Esso in Charlottetown to fill cans with furnace oil.
“There is a lot of oil used in PEI because the price of electricity is a little higher here than in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and there is no natural gas so there is a large demand for furnace oil,” Mr MacDonald said. “A lot of people in our area burn wood and don’t need a full tank - they don’t want to put $500 or $600 in when they’re only going to burn a couple of hundred all year.”
Mr MacDonald said many customers who use the service in Charlottetown, for example, are either university students or people on fixed incomes who buy some oil to get them through a rough spot.
The Charlottetown station is actually selling furnace oil at 95.9 cents a litre, which is significantly lower than the $1.06.3 maximum price. Mr MacDonald said the lower price is possible because Wilson’s isn’t paying for a truck or driver to deliver the product.
“I can see where the larger companies are coming from,” Mr MacDonald said. “If you have a person and a truck are tied up doing $50 or $100 deliveries all day long, the numbers don’t add up. You’re probably spending more money than you’re making in small deliveries like that.”