Home heating oil and fuel prices drop to four year low

The price of home heating oil and fuel in Northern Ireland is at its lowest level since 2021, and the advice is to buy now – if you are able.

The average price of 500 litres of home heating oil is £258.78; a litre of petrol costs 128.7p, and diesel is 133.4p per litre, according to Consumer Council NI’s (CCNI) weekly price checker.

In March 2022, 500 litres of home heating oil peaked at £662.86, petrol reached 189.9p per litre in July 2022, and diesel cost an average of 197.5p per litre in June the same year.

Despite the recent warm weather and the incoming summer months, CCNI’s Head of Energy Raymond Gormley advised “now is a good time” to buy oil in what is a “volatile market”.

Almost two-thirds of homes [62.5%] in Northern Ireland use oil for heating, the highest proportion of the UK nations.

At a busy petrol station in Lurgan, County Armagh, some of those filling their cars up with petrol or diesel said while the prices may be low, they are still too expensive for many.

Tina Beggs said it is “ridiculous” that it costs almost £100 to fill up her two-litre diesel car.

“I work part-time, so I do 20 hours a week, which gives me about £1,000 a month, and by the time I pay for my mortgage, you’re talking an extra £100 or £150 just on fuel,” she explained.

“For somebody that works part-time, like me, that is actually quite a good chunk of my wage,” she added.

Michael Breen believes the price of fuel “could be lower again” and has noticed a big disparity in prices at filling stations.

“You go to some petrol stations and there’s a 10p difference in diesel, so there’s a bit of shopping around as well,” he said.

“It fluctuates all the time, and it’ll probably go up again. Through the winter the fuel goes through the roof, and in the summer it drops again. That’s the nature of it, really.”

Tanya Preshur has recently switched from diesel to a petrol car, and she said while prices “could be lower”, she’s spending around £40 less a week on fuel.

“I use the car for school runs and running here and there with children,” she said.

“Prices went sky-high. I think it’s the smaller runs. You’re using a lot more [fuel] because you’re running back and forth all the time.

“I put about £40 to £50 a week in the car now, as before it was maybe £80 a week.”

Meanwhile, Dominic Thornton, who works close to his Lurgan home, said he was more concerned about home heating oil and food prices.

“We’re maybe more worried about the cost of heating oil because we’re moving from a small house, to a slightly bigger house so we’re worried about how much that’s going to cost to heat, along with the rising costs of everything else on top of that,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be pulling at the pump and looking at the price of a litre of fuel; I’d be more concerned about the price of a litre of milk.”

CCNI’s Raymond Gormley said the current low prices for fuel and home heating oil were due to several factors, including US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs and crude oil producers producing more oil.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which is an alliance of the top crude oil producers in the world, announced last month they were going to ramp up oil production by 400,000 barrels per day.

“So you take the impact on the world economies that Trump had and that overproduction; it has meant demand is low, supply is high and prices have come down,” said Mr Gormley.

Mr Gormley has advised consumers to buy home heating oil if they are able to do so, as it is “good value for money”.

“That’s not to say it will go down again next week, but equally, it could go up again next week,” he said. “It’s a really volatile market.

“In the summertime you have 100 different things you want to be spending your money on, and the last thing you want to do is be thinking ahead and going, ‘I have a few spare pounds; oil is cheap; I could buy now for the off-season’.

“It’s normally cheaper in the summertime than it is in the wintertime because of supply and demand – colder weather, demand is higher and the price goes up.”

Mr Gormley said it’s important to buy oil in bulk, as the smaller order you place, the more you pay per litre.

CCNI’s weekly oil price checker allows you to see average prices for 300, 500 and 900 litres of oil, which gives consumers an idea of how much they should be spending before pricing local suppliers.

For those who do not have a lump sum available to order oil, Mr Gormley suggested joining an oil buying club where communities come together to buy oil in bulk and, hopefully, make a saving.

The NI Oil Federation also offers a pre-payment scheme, while oil fuel stamps allow residents to budget and spread the cost by purchasing stamps from local retailers and using them to pay for their oil delivery.