Ahead for Heating Oil Users: a Record-Shattering Winter

Penny Osborn never before needed help with the cost of heating, but the 57-year-old physician’s assistant had been out of work most of last year recovering from cancer surgery. And as cold weather set in, she faced an $855 bill to fill up the oil tank of her Colfax, Iowa, home


Although Osborn’s run of misfortune was unusual, the same kind of sticker shock is rattling households in all cold-weather states. The average cost of U.S. home heating this winter is expected to be up 11.2 percent over that in 2006-07, with the price tag of $989 expected to surpass even that following Hurricane Katrina, when the fuel supply was squeezed. And the situation is far worse for the 7.9 million American households that use heating oil, because its price is directly tied to the volatile global crude market. For them, the average heating bill is estimated to be $2,019, up 37.6 percent over last year.

“Going into 2008, we had expected oil prices to start easing,” says Tancred Lidderdale, analyst for the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the close match between global oil supply and demand