Heating oil is changing hands at 111p per litre (ppl), leaving roughly 1.5 million UK households that are not connected to the mains gas network exposed to steep winter bills. The vast majority of those households are in rural locations.
Unlike gas and electricity, the heating oil market is unregulated, meaning movements in global prices reach customers quickly. Tensions in the Middle East and the continuing war in Ukraine are both affecting supply, pushing prices up.
According to the price comparison site Boiler Juice, the cost held steady at about 60ppl until March, when the war in Iran began, before climbing to a high of 134ppl. After easing over recent months it is rising once more and currently stands at 111ppl.
A typical tank holds 500 litres and currently costs about £550 to fill.
Homeowners and businesses count the cost
Peter Mason, who lives in Minety in north Wiltshire, where most homes rely on heating oil, said he was near the end of his tank and needed to top up for winter, a fill that will cost him more than £550.
He said last year a fill-up ran to about £300, describing the current figure as horrendous. While the price can swing by as much as £50 in either direction, he said it had never climbed as high as it is today.
“It means I’ll have to eek out what I spent my money on. I’m retired, its not like I can change jobs,” he said. “I have to be really careful and pull money out of savings.”
Dylan Williams, 51, owns the van-driving business Van & I of Monmouth in Wales and regularly works in the Forest of Dean, Stroud and South Gloucestershire. He said he was paying more for fuel than at any point in the three years he has run the business, and had raised his prices to offset the increase.
A full tank cost him between £120 and £130 at the start of the year, he said, but that has now risen to £160. “It’s ever increasing, ever worrying – keeping an eye on the news, keeping an eye on the diesel prices,” he said, adding that his fuel cards no longer made much difference.
Yvette Farrell, volunteer director of Dean Forest Kitchen, which cooks fresh meals every day and delivers them to clients across the Forest of Dean, said the operation might have to raise its prices because there is “not going to be much choice in the future”.
She said the fuel cost was hitting the business hard because it operates on a not-for-profit basis with little room to absorb any rise in expenses. Clients are spread across a rural area with no public transport, she added, and the meals must still reach them because they are so isolated that nobody else calls on them during the day.
Tristan Holland, company director at TLC Support Service, manages a small team of community care workers who travel around Wotton-under-Edge and Dursley. Staff use their own vehicles and the company pays mileage at 55p per business mile.
He said fees were increased at the start of the year to account for rising extras, but even that leaves things tight. The cost of fuel, training and uniforms have all gone up, he said, and while the company tries to keep services as affordable as possible it needs a profit to keep operating.
Regulator flags vulnerability to price shocks
The Competition and Markets Authority said heating oil customers in remote areas were too vulnerable to price shocks. Its chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said stronger safeguards were needed, including regulatory oversight and better support for vulnerable consumers and for communities in parts of the UK that are particularly exposed to higher and more volatile prices.
Calls for targeted support
Richard Willan, who runs the Nadder Oil Buying Club in Wiltshire, where more than 1,000 residents buy in bulk to secure a better price, said rural residents were increasingly vulnerable as the colder months set in.
“We are watching to see what happens with (Donald) Trump in the mid-term elections in America, that might change things again,” he said.
The Iran war has disrupted the production and transportation of wholesale oil, and prices can rise or fall on the words and actions of key political figures. It is thought a peace deal between the US and Iran could bring prices down.
Corinne Pluchino, chief executive of Action in Rural Communities England, said that without specific targeted support for heating oil and LPG users, thousands of rural people risk becoming the forgotten victims of the energy crisis.
The organisation is asking the government to remove VAT on heating oil and LPG for six months in this month’s budget.
Locally run schemes are also operating, including the Surviving Winter campaign run by a group of charities in Wiltshire, which supported more than 3,000 people last year with the cost of heating.
A spokesperson for the Department for the Environment and Net Zero said: “We are helping thousands of households on heating oil switch to clean heat with grants worth £9,000, alongside a dedicated resilience fund for areas with higher rates of oil heating.”
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