OFTEC has achieved a major victory for the oil heating industry after a lengthy campaign in Europe.
Six years ago when the European Commission published its draft Energy-related Products Directive the future of the oil fired heating sector looked bleak. The proposed directive would have required NOx emissions levels from boilers of well below 100 milligrams per kilowatt hour. OFTEC says that if the limits had been accepted it would have 'destroyed the UK and Irish oil heating industry overnight because it would have been impossible to reduce boiler emissions to the proposed levels'.

However, after extensive lobbying by OFTEC and its European industry partner Eurofuel, in the recently published directive the maximum NOx emission limit has been set at 120mg per kWh for oil boilers, a figure that manufacturers believe is achievable.

OFTEC director general Jeremy Hawksley said: 'We have worked tirelessly with our industry partners in Europe to secure this realistic figure for NOx emissions, which is extremely positive for our industry. The new standard for oil boilers has been deferred until 2018 instead of 2016 as previously proposed, which will give manufacturers the necessary lead time to implement any product changes.'

In addition, OFTEC says the proposed penalty for non-modulating domestic oil fired boilers has been removed.