Scenario

GOenergy was hired by a major agricultural supplier with branches located in Ontario, Canada, and Minnesota in the US. The company serves as a localized grain handling facility for producers and retail centres. They provide seed, grains, white pea beans, edible beans, popcorn, dry pack grocery products, fertilizer, crop protectants and other farm services upon crop maturity and harvesting. Their grain processing, drying and storage services are contracted to both growers and food processors.

The seasonality of the company’s business activities means their natural gas consumption is difficult to predict.

Issues

The company was often buying more gas than needed, which was negatively affecting their bottom line.

In addition, having multiple locations created difficulties understanding and tracking energy costs, which hampered key business decisions. In fact, one location had another provider altogether with a different set of bills and prices.

Splitting natural gas consumption across multiple locations also diminished their buying power, as well as their ability to obtain the customer support needed from any one supplier to help them manage their entire program.

Solution

The company decided to partner with GOenergy for their natural gas needs. We studied their business and customized our services accordingly.

We first consolidated their natural gas billing across all their locations into a single bill, simplifying their administrative process and improving their purchasing power.

Next, we provided a fixed-price gas contract that included the option to add blocks of gas in peak periods to manage the impact of seasonality, resulting in a more consistent cash flow.

Finally, we provided an annual analysis of their usage, detailing how their bottom line is affected by natural gas delivery charges.

Benefits

The company can now hedge their natural gas costs with a stable fixed cost, yet still respond to seasonality by adding gas as needed, thus easing the pressure on profitability. Consolidating their natural gas costs under a single bill gave them the savings and flexibility normally only available to much larger natural gas customers.

GOenergy understood their business and provided the level of customer service and support they required.