Millions of homeowners across the Northeast could pay more to heat their homes this winter, as heating oil prices remain high after surging in the months following the start of the Iran war in late February.
While over 90 percent of U.S. households use natural gas and electricity to warm their homes, heating oil is still widely used in the Northeast, a particularly cold-weather region. According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), only four percent of households nationwide used heating oil as their primary heating source, while five percent used propane.
But the vast majority of the 4.8 million households relying on heating oil are concentrated in the Northeast, as an EIA analysis reveals that the use of this type of fuel increases the colder the temperatures facing Americans are.
Disruptions in the global oil market caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which Americans have been feeling most painfully at the pump, will hit some families hard in the comfort of their homes when temperatures start dropping in the coming weeks.
“Real crunch time comes with dead-of-winter since diesel and heating oil are essentially the same molecules,” Tom Kloza, chief oil adviser at Gulf Oil, told Newsweek.
The average cost of home heating oil is now above $6 per gallon, having soared by more than 70 percent from this time last year, according to EIA data.
Which States Rely the Most on Heating Oil to Warm Homes
Maine has the nation’s highest share of homes relying on heating oil as the main heat source, according to the latest state-level Census Bureau data available on fuels used in homes, which refers to 2022, at around 50 percent. The number was obtained by calculating the proportion of occupied housing units whose main heating fuel was “fuel oil, kerosene, or other.”
New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Alaska and Rhode Island follow with shares between 37 percent and 25 percent. Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania are next with shares between 20 percent and 12 percent.
Numbers were slightly lower in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, where the share of homes was between roughly 7 percent and 6 percent.
Heating Could Cost Thousands of Dollars More This Winter
EIA published weekly price maps for propane and heating oil collected during the heating season, from October to March. Recent ones show that the cost of heating U.S. homes with these types of fuels is shaping up to be much more expensive than it was last year.
As of October 12, heating oil prices had increased by approximately $2.59 per gallon nationwide compared to a year earlier, at $6.14 per gallon, and were up by 8 cents from a week earlier.
The highest prices were reported in New York ($6.335 per gallon), New Jersey ($6.313 per gallon), Delaware ($6.305 per gallon), Rhode Island ($6.304 per gallon) and Maryland ($6.246 per gallon).
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The highest year-over-year increases were reported in Kentucky (up by $2.816 to $5.857 per gallon), Pennsylvania (up by $2.766 to $6.014 per gallon), Michigan (up by $2.731 to $5.854 per gallon), Indiana (up by $2.708 to $6.023 per gallon) and Maine (up by $2.702 to $5.969 per gallon).
These increases could cost households across the Northeast thousands of dollars more this winter to warm their homes when the thermometer drops, experts say.
“A typical household in the Northeast that depends on heating oil might use anywhere between 800 and 1,000 gallons during a heating season. And obviously, with the numbers we’re talking about now—that’s a $6,000 bill compared to maybe a $3,500 or $4,000 bill in previous years,” Kloza told Marketplace in September.
In its annual update this month, EIA said that it expects a 21 percent increase in spending on heating oil compared with last winter, with projected heating oil costs of roughly $2,115 through March for the average household.
A Geographically Confined Crisis Could Spill Onto the National Stage
Soaring fuel prices and rising inflation are making Americans grow sour on the Trump administration and the president, who has seen his approval rating decline to historic lows since late February.
Higher heating oil prices in cold-weather battleground states like Maine and New Hampshire, which are both holding key Senate races this year, could turn an issue affecting only a limited share of U.S. households into one with nationwide consequences.
In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson is hoping to unseat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, with the latest polling giving the challenger a narrow margin.
In New Hampshire, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas is hoping to prevail over Republican John Sununu, who is seeking a comeback in the Granite State, to claim the seat left vacant by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat not running for re-election. The latest polling has put Pappas steadily ahead of Sununu.
Democrats need to flip four GOP-held seats in the Senate to gain the majority in the upper chamber, including two seats in states that Trump won by double digits in 2024.
Unlikely Relief Could Come from This Winter’s Super El Niño
A “very strong” El Niño this fall and winter, as predicted by forecasters, could provide some unexpected help to homeowners in the Northeast facing higher heating oil prices.
“El Niño typically alters atmospheric circulation, which historically increases the odds of a warmer and drier winter across the Northern U.S. tier and a cooler, wetter winter across the Southern U.S. tier,” Erik Smith, EPRI Technical Leader of Climate Data Analysis at EPRI, an independent, non-profit energy R&D institute, told Newsweek.
“A winter that follows the more typical pattern—mild North, cool South—may reduce national heating demand, though the effect in any one region depends on its heating fuel mix, and a single cold outbreak, like Winter Storm Uri that impacted Texas in February of 2021, can offset a month of reduced demand,” he said.
In 2015-16, which experienced one of the strongest El Niño events on record, the October to March season across the contiguous United States was 15 percent warmer than the previous winter, according to EIA data, driven in part by the weather phenomenon.
During that season, propane and heating oil demand decreased 16 percent and 18 percent, respectively, residential electricity demand decreased 6 percent, and gas in storage in April was 69 percent higher than a year earlier, the agency reported.
“This winter’s event may be stronger than 2015-16, and the climate system has warmed since then,” Smith said. “So the example is best read as an illustration of scale rather than a forecast.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Emma Lee-Sang