Heat oil prices a cold fact of life

LYNN – Burrrrrrrrrr!That’s the word plenty of North Shore residents fear as winter approaches due to the record-breaking price of home heating oil.Heating oil was selling regionally this week for up to $3.25 per gallon, although most delivery companies in Lynn were offering regular customers discounts of 10 to 15 cents.For example, at John’s Oil Co. in Lynn, established customers who pay within 10 days of delivery were buying heating oil Tuesday for a discounted $3.12 per gallon.Holly Enos of Swampscott, a single parent with three children – a teenager and two younger – works full time but can’t afford to heat her home. “It’s really hard,” she said. “I was approved at LEO (Lynn Economic Opportunity) for fuel assistance, but it only amounts to 90 gallons because of the price of oil. So I have to weigh things out. Do I pay my bills or do I buy oil? I haven’t even thought about Christmas gifts.”Enos has a half tank of oil and is using it sparingly. “When it runs out, I’ll buy another $200 worth, but not a full tank. I keep the thermostat down. I turn it way down when I go to work and up again when I get home,” she said. “I tell the kids to put on their bathrobes and another pair of socks.”A week ago, the per-gallon price of heating oil in New England averaged $2.92, based on a survey by NewEnglandOil.com. A year ago, it was just more than $2 a gallon in the region.”It’s beyond belief,” said John Walsh, owner of John’s Oil. “The trucking freight haulers and the metal haulers are going nuts. Oil is on the commodities market in New York and the Chinese are buying up the oil and the metal, so it’s out of control.”Walsh, whose business has been selling heating oil in Lynn since 1976, said many customers are ordering partial rather than full tank deliveries.”The oil companies won’t give us any more credit despite the price increase,” he said. “We have to pay them within 10 days. The money gets automatically drawn from our account on day 11. That’s why we give a discount to customers to pay within that time. It’s about cash flow, and if you have people who don’t pay you for three months, you’ve got a problem. Look what happened to Viking Oil. So we’ve got people putting the oil on their credit cards.”Viking Oil in Winthrop accepted advance payments from customers, spent the funds and, when unable to get credit from oil suppliers, simply stopped deliveries, literally leaving people in the cold.Of the 107 million households in the U.S., approximately 8.1 million use heating oil as their primary heating fuel. Residential users make up the bulk of home heating oil consumed nationwide, which creates a high seasonal demand as temperatures plummet in winter.Most heating oil use occurs from October through March. Some customers try to beat rising winter prices by filling their storage tanks in the summer or early fall when the prices are likely to be lower, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.The government agency noted that a typical household will pay almost $1,000 this winter to keep their homes warm, a jump of up to 22 percent from last year. Worse, U.S. heating oil inventories as of mid-November were nearly 25 percent below both last year’s inventory numbers and the 10-year average.The higher fuel prices have caused more people to seek help paying their heating bills, so there is less help to go around.Since most Massachusetts homeowners do not have large enough storage tanks to store the full amount needed to meet winter demands, they may have to refill their tanks as often as 4 or 5 times during the heating season, possible rising or spiking prices are a concern.The price hikes have set records throughout the region. In Rhode Island, heating oil increased by eight cents a gallon over the past week, for an average price of $3.28 – establishing another record. According to the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, it was the highest price ever recorded in the state.Heating oil prices are currently an average 91 ce