Get your fill

This month, the Club’s technical team look at refilling points for gas tanks

Q How can I best find refilling points for my user-refillable gas cylinder?

A recent Club survey indicated that 11% of caravanners and more than 40% of motorhome and campervan owners use user-refillable cylinders or tanks, although sometimes alongside exchangeable cylinders.

Owners could initially make significant use of the forecourt-based refilling points provided for LPG-powered vehicles – but such vehicles have never become a mainstream option and numbers are declining.

The market in LPG for many forecourt operators really isn’t viable, therefore, meaning forecourt refilling point numbers will inevitably decline over time.

Indeed, this trend has been ongoing for a while – Shell closed its last forecourt Autogas filling point in 2020 (Autogas being a joint venture between Shell and Calor). Another leading forecourt operator, Motor Fuels Group, which operates nearly 900 forecourts for BP, Esso, Jet, Murco, Shell and Texaco, announced in 2022 plans to convert its 38 LPG-equipped forecourts to EV charging by 2024.

LPG for leisure vehicle habitation and a range of other uses is a different matter and there’s plenty of demand. The LPG industry has plans to secure the future of LPG as a sustainable fuel by changing from fossil fuel-derived gas to biogas or synthetically-produced gas by 2040, so we expect availability to continue for the time being.

Rather than from forecourts, LPG is often available from commercial/leisure parts and accessory stockists, builders suppliers, leisure vehicle dealers, marinas and the like – these businesses may be off the main roads and sometimes only open during normal business hours. There are regular issues with availability at quite a few of these sites, perhaps due to damage to the filling equipment or, on occasion, limited supply of LPG being available. Pricing can be variable between different outlets too.

If you are visiting a non-forecourt filling outlet for the first time, it may be wise to call ahead to establish access details if you have a larger vehicle, and particularly if you need to fill a fixed tank. There are a few websites we find most effective at detailing these outlets:

• filllpg.co.uk – good, up-to-date listings with price/availability information. Comprehensive UK list of around 1,800+ stations.
• autogas.app – site focused on the remaining forecourt filling stations. Includes price/availability information. Limited coverage outside the UK.
• mylpg.eu/stations – good listing of UK, European and global facilities. Over 48,000 filling points listed across 70 countries. Some price/availability information.

The 1,800 or so filling points in the UK are likely to decline further as many of the remaining forecourt pumps disappear. However, there should still be a sufficient number of non-forecourt filling points for viable use for habitation cylinder/tank refilling.

Please address your questions to: Technical Information, 
Email: technical@camc.com
Tel: 01342 336611

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