Consider the humble gas bottle

HAS anyone noticed how friendly LPG suppliers are to each other?You hand in an Afrox bottle and you get your pick of other branded bottles -- Easigas, BP Gas, and so on. Sensible system really. Gas bottles circulate merrily and everyone is happy that the gas is sold. It's a bit like buying Coke in a Pepsi bottle. It all works remarkable well, considering that one gas supplier (Afrox) has about three quarters of the LPG market in South Africa at the moment. It works well as long as everyone plays fair. But, there have been times when a neat little game is played by gas suppliers -- they buy competitor-bottled LPG and then hang onto the cylinders. Only the big players can do this of course, but it is usually enough to drive the smaller companies out of business. It's a bit like Coke discounting in targeted areas to stop small mineral water suppliers taking a slice of the market. That wouldn't be happening now, would it? To LP gas, I mean.