OTS Group Ltd celebrates ‘50 years of innovation’

OTS Group Ltd celebrates ‘50 years of innovation’


OTS Group Ltd celebrates its 50th anniversary this spring. From humble beginnings in 1971 in a farm cowshed to becoming a leader in the fuel industry, the company said it has never lost sight of its values.

Established in 1971 as Oil Tank Supplies Ltd it was originally focused on the manufacture of small domestic oil storage tanks and installation and changeover services.

“It all started with Peter Wood and I meeting at Seale Hayne Agricultural College in Devon and we kept in touch and both realised that we were probably unemployable,” remembers co-founder Bruce Woodal. “Therefore, we decided we should start a business of our own and recognised there was an opportunity to seize in oil fired central heating by manufacturing domestic oil storage tanks.”

“We started in a cowshed at Churchdown near Cheltenham. The tanks were manufactured in the old cowshed and every piece of steel and finished tanks were manually handled. No forklifts! Within 2 years, we persuaded CoSIRA (Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas) to give us an industrial building loan for our first factory at Andoversford near Cheltenham.

“Two years later we moved into the factory and we were then manufacturing around 200 tanks a month, and everything was looking good. Then in November of 1973 OPEC suddenly decided to rapidly increase the price of crude oil which literally changed the domestic heating scene overnight.”

That year, the price of kerosene more than doubled in price and orders dropped within 2 months to less than 50 tanks a month.

“It taught us that we had to diversify to build a sustainable business”, added Woodal.

For more information visit www.otsgroup.co.uk

29th March 2021