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What Causes Changes in the Prices of Heating Oil?

Date: January 20, 2020

heating oil pricesFollowing oil prices can feel like being on a roller coaster. Especially because it can make you dizzy.

The last heating oil season (2018-19) was a prime example. Early on, oil prices jumped by 10 percent. Then they dropped 20 percent by spring.

All of these highs and lows may have you wondering what brings on these changes and if there is any way you can better control what you pay for your heating oil.

Cubby Oil is here to help! We offer our customers pricing programs that let you decide how your heating oil price will be set. In fact, our Capped Oil Price Program does just that. It caps how high your heating oil price can go, protecting you from spikes in pricing.

How oil heat pricing works

Heating oil is derived from refining crude oil, which is the base of many other fuels.

Because it’s a globally traded commodity, many things can affect the price of crude oil, whether the price goes up or down. These factors include politics and international disputes such as recent tensions between the United States and Iran, and a 2019 drone attack on an oil plant in Saudi Arabia.

Nature also can impact crude oil pricing and thus the price of your heating oil. If a natural disaster occurs in an oil-producing area, or an area critical for oil refining or shipping, it can create a jump in oil prices. One example of this is Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused the price of crude oil to increase by $3 a barrel.

Heating oil: A good value!

Even with a crude oil market that can bring some crazy fluctuations in pricing, heating oil still remains a good value. If you adjust for inflation, home heating oil actually costs a great deal less than it did years ago! No matter what the markets do, heating oil remains an affordable energy source that provides even and reliable home heating.

And with B40 Bioheat from Cubby Oil, you get an environmentally friendly ultra-low sulfur heating oil that causes less wear on your heating equipment, which saves you money because you need fewer repairs and get a longer life expectancy for your heating system.

Receive quick, reliable delivery of B40 Bioheat heating oil from Cubby Oil all winter long. Become a customer today and experience the benefits we have to offer!

Cubby Oil services Boston and the surrounding towns including Somerville, Melrose, Malden & Cambridge.

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