Fuel dealers’ earnings melting in mild winter

Recent temperatures make them sweat.

Mild weather may sit well with Mummers and anyone else who relishes a springlike day in January. But to those in the energy trade, this winter already looks like a slow-motion train wreck.

And that’s especially true for fuel-oil dealers in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the Northeast.

Demand for heating fuels is down sharply from last year. Peco Energy sold 18 percent less natural gas in December than it did a year earlier. Philadelphia Gas Works says its December sales dove 26 percent. Area fuel-oil dealers say deliveries are down 20 percent to 25 percent.

With weather also mild in the Midwest and Europe, lower demand has depressed prices, too. Since Dec. 1, spot prices for natural gas have dropped nearly 30 percent, the federal Energy Information Administration said yesterday. In that same period, spot prices for West Texas Intermediate crude oil have fallen about 12 percent.

Philadelphia Inquirer