Home heating oil costs soaring to near-record highs

NEW YORK - While prices at the pump continue to fall, home heating oil has been trending in the opposite direction. 

The current national average for heating oil prices is just over $5 a gallon, more than twice what it was in the winter of 2015/2016, when a gallon of heating oil was just $2.06. 

"I got my first heating bill, and it was up probably 30%," one man told FOX 5 NY.

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Experts say the spike in costs has to do with colder-than-expected winter weather, refinery closures, and a global oil supply crunch.

"With an impending European Union ban on the purchase of Russian sourced diesel, we’ll see a scramble for alternative supply which on a worldwide basis will continue to have a tight market for diesel fuel," said home heating expert Andy Lipow, President of Lipow Oil Associates.  

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects heating a home with natural gas will cost an extra 25% this winter, and heating with electricity will run 11% higher. However, the steepest hike will be on heating oil, which is expected to be 45% more expensive - impacting roughly 5 million households, mostly in the Northeast.

Bills are expected to be higher than in year’s past and experts believe it will stay that way for the next 6-12 months. But the good news they  say is that it looks like heating oil prices have peaked.