Lock in winter fuel price? Not this year

Dealers are shunning contracts that stabilize heat-fuel prices.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – People who have gotten used to locking in prices in the summer for home-heating fuel will have to devise other saving strategies this year. With fuel prices on the rise, dealers are saying no way to the fixed and capped-price programs that have grown increasingly popular in recent years.
They are “few and far between,” according to John Maniscalco, an executive vice president with the New York Heating Association.

During the past few years, many heating oil users arranged for their winter’s fuel shipments in late summer, when prices are cheapest, according to John Sullivan, president of the New England Fuel Institute.

Sullivan added, however, that when oil prices go down instead of up, customers have been reluctant to stand by their contracts, leaving dealers on the hook if customers bail.

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