Written by Jill Mislinski
With winter coming to a close, we are nearing the end of the heating oil season. This year’s winter was warmer than average and saw a continued drop in heating oil prices, but with a slight uptick toward the season close. The end-of-season jump in prices reflects the crude oil uptick we’ve seen recently.
We’ve used data based on the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which publishes price data weekly on home heating oil in 38 states. Unlike natural gas and electricity, home heating oil is provided by independent retailers.
The latest price for home heating oil nationwide is $2.13, up a penny from last week.
EIA’s heating oil data is seasonal – from October through March. Here’s a look at the series since its inception in 1990.
Here’s a closer look since 2000.
EIA breaks the data down into regions and sub-regions. Here we’ve overlayed the US average with the East Coast and Midwest regions. Notice that Midwest prices tend to be much lower than East coast prices and see more dramatic declines. This season on average, the Midwest has seen a decline of at 0.50 per gallon versus the East Coast at 0.29 per gallon.
Another figure EIA tracks is the residential oil supply. The chart below shows the minimal changes in residential heating oil supply since 1990 and that supply does not determine prices in this case.
The next chart shows the New York Harbor (NYMEX:HO) spot prices going back to 1986.
Check back next week for new data.
