Heating oil costs lowest in years

Dell Cromie never thought he'd see heating oil prices sink this low.

“I never thought I'd see it under $2 again,” said Cromie, the owner of Glassmere Fuel Service in West Deer. “If you buy 200 gallons of home heating oil, you only pay $1.959 a gallon.”

Last year at this time, Cromie was selling 200 gallons for $3.39 a gallon.

“It's down appreciably right now,” he said. “The average person uses about 500 gallons a year to heat their home.

“The more you buy, the cheaper it is,” Cromie added.

Cromie said he doesn't see the price getting lower, so he thinks now would be a good time to refill those home heating oil tanks for the winter.

“It's down, and it's a great value,” he said. “It's going to go up — it always goes up in the winter.” How much?

“I'm not sure; I doubt too much.”

Shawn Jackson, the owner of Jackson Oil in Valencia, said his customers have been taking advantage of the low prices.

“Normally, people just say, ‘Give me 150 or 200 gallons,' ” he said. “Now, they're saying, ‘For that price, fill it up.' ”

Jackson said he's selling 200 gallons at about $1.84 per gallon.

“It's the lowest it's been in at least 10 years,” said Jackson, who's been in the oil business for 26 years. “The markup is the same as it's always been, so it's been really good for business.”

Jackson said it's not the lowest price he's ever seen.

“The summer I first started, the price was like 39 cents a gallon,” he said with a chuckle. “Then, it went up to, like, 60 a gallon.

“But that was a long time ago.”

Cromie said he doubts that the lower price of oil will cause people who went to natural gas furnaces to return to heating oil.

“You're not going to shell out $3,500 to convert to natural gas and then go back because it's down,” he said.

Forecast: Milder than last winter

Making things even better for the consumer is the fact that forecasters don't expect this winter to be as brutally cold as last winter.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this winter is likely to be about 13 percent warmer than last winter in the Northeast.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the Northeast is the largest user of home heating oil, with about 25 percent of homes using it as fuel.

The number one choice in the region is natural gas, with about 50 percent using it, according to the administration.

R.A. Monti is a freelance writer. Staff writer Mary Ann Thomas contributed to this report.