While the cost per gallon is up from last December, it's down from early this month. 'No one has a crystal ball,' one fuel dealer says
Monday, December 28, 2009
Home heating oil prices are close to where they were last year, but analysts and midstate oil companies advise that prices are likely to be volatile.
Rick Barbush of Harrisburg-based Service Oil Co. offers heating oil for $2.69 a gallon. Competitor Eshenaurs Fuels offers the same price.
Dave Skoczynski, Eshenaurs fuel manager, said the price is 20 cents more than what he and many competitors offered in December 2008.
But it's 12 cents less than the rate at the beginning of December.
Skoczynski is cautious.
"No one has a crystal ball," he said. "The move in price is really inconsequential considering what we went through in years past."
The midstate's natural gas customers are also getting a break: UGI's heating bills have declined 3 percent from the previous quarter beginning this month. The average residential bill dropped from $119.23 to $115.70.
"We are not anticipating any more increases in the short term," said UGI spokesman Mike Fessler. The Associated Press has reported fuel shortages throughout the mid-Atlantic region thanks to the Dec. 19 snowstorm.
But midstate providers do not seem to have experienced any major weather-related shortages.
"As far as shortages of product, I'm not aware of any," Skoczynski said.
He added that the weather affected his business only in "timeliness of delivery."
Barbush said he tries to keep employees prepared for bad weather by rescheduling delivery times.
Like home heating oil, gasoline prices in the midstate have dipped in the last several weeks. But Neil Gamson, an economist with the U.S. Energy and Information Administration, cautioned against making too much of the dip because 2008 was such a "strange year" for oil and gasoline prices.
Gasoline prices are expected to go up in the next year.
Gamson said Harrisburg and the mid-Atlantic region -- for the most part -- have been following national trends since the record rate spike in July 2008.
Since December 2008, the price for a gallon of gasoline has climbed 94 cents, to $2.58, in the midstate, according to Energy Administration estimates.
"We do expect that an improved economy globally will push oil prices up, and gasoline prices should follow," Gamson said.
