Liquigas calls on rival supplier to stop hoarding cylinders

Liquigas, the gas supplier, has called on the authorities to take action against the hoarding of cylinders by rival company Easygas.

It accused Easygas of being mainly responsible for a lack of cylinders on the market because it had been hoarding thousands of Liquigas’ green and yellow cylinders.

Liquigas said it had put 56,000 new cylinders on the market since 2009 and last year started a retesting exercise to ensure that cylinders complied with EU and local regulations.

For the last four months, it had constantly asked the authorities to ensure that Liquigas cylinders were returned to their rightful owners.

Easygas, Liquigas said, had been picking up its cylinders from the market and not returning them in spite of a number of requests from Liquigas.

“We can’t go on in this way. Liquigas understands and would like to express its concern for the gas distributors.

“We can buy as many cylinders as we can, but if the hoarding by Easygas is not stopped by the authorities, the problem is going to persist,” Liquigas CEO Roberto Capellutto said.

Since January, Easygas has been accepting empty yellow, green or brown Liquigas cylinders in exchange for its new grey ones at no extra cost if consumers wanted to switch suppliers.

The move was made after Liquigas decided that customers who wanted to return empty cylinders had to present their receipt to receive their full €25 refund in cases where this amount applied. Otherwise, customers would only be given a €5 refund.

Easygas had said the need for customers to fork out money to switch suppliers was creating a hurdle for them and went against the spirit of free competition.

At the time it said it planned to enter into talks with Liquigas on how the latter’s cylinders would be returned.