Heating oil, gas prices on the rise
NEW YORK - Sparked by a cold snap in the Northeast, home heating fuels are getting more expensive even though supplies are well above normal for this time of year.
Heating oil futures spiked with crude oil contracts last week. Retail prices followed, surging an average of 10.2 cents per gallon for residential customers by Monday, according to an Energy Information Administration report released yesterday.
Natural gas prices rose everywhere for retail customers, with hikes of between 31 cents and $1.14 per each million British thermal units.
Those prices are still well below what they were last year, when worries about peaking world crude demand pushed all energy commodities higher. But energy analysts are having a tough time finding fundamental reasons for the recent jump in prices, given the amount of heating oil and natural gas piling up in storage. The government said the United States has crammed 3.7 trillion cubic feet of gas in underground caverns, the most on record. A day earlier, it said the country has 33 percent more distillate fuel on hand than it did one year ago.
Futures contracts may be rising on the expectation that natural gas producers and heating oil refiners will slow operations ahead of what weather forecasters say could be a frigid winter, said Phil Flynn, an analyst with PFGBest
Meanwhile, oil prices slipped below $81 a barrel yesterday as a wobbly US dollar gained against other currencies.
