Two parts of the same country, two completely different amounts of information available to a household deciding whether to order this week.
| Northern Ireland | Great Britain | |
|---|---|---|
| Regular price survey | Weekly, by the Consumer Council | None |
| Basket sizes surveyed | 300, 500 and 900 litres | Not applicable |
| Official national figure | Included in the UK monthly series | Monthly, up to 1,000 litres |
| Regional breakdown | The survey is itself regional | None published |
| Household dependence on oil | The highest in the UK | A minority, concentrated in rural areas |
| Price cap on the fuel | None. Oil is not a capped market | None. Oil is not a capped market |
DESNZ Quarterly Energy Prices / QEP 4.1.1 standard grade burning oil / published 27 August 2026 / checked 23 September 2026 / lag 27 daysone to four weeks oldtier A
Typical price for a delivery of up to 1,000 litres, VAT at 5% included. Observed on the Monday nearest the 15th.
Why the dependence matters
In Northern Ireland, heating with oil is the norm rather than the exception. That has two consequences that pull against each other. It supports a dense, competitive delivery market with short rounds, which is good for price. It also means a price shock is a society wide event there rather than a rural inconvenience, which is why the Consumer Council survey exists at all.
The cap question, answered properly
Heating oil is not covered by an energy price cap anywhere in the UK. The cap applies to gas and electricity supplied through a meter. An oil household on either side of the Irish Sea is buying an unregulated commodity delivered by tanker, and no announcement about the cap has ever changed what a litre of kerosene costs.
What that means practically is that the protection an oil household has is information rather than regulation. Northern Ireland has more of that information than anywhere else in the UK, and it is free.
Why we publish no Northern Ireland basket figure
The Consumer Council price checker returned an HTTP 403 to our automated check on 23 September 2026. We did not read it, so we do not restate it. That withdrawal is logged in the revision log with its date, and the link below goes straight to the source, which is updated weekly and is free to use.
What an order costs at the UK reading
300 litres
GBP 270.03
500 litres
GBP 450.05
900 litres
GBP 810.09
1,200 litres
GBP 1,080.12
Those three smaller volumes are the Consumer Council basket sizes, priced at the UK-wide reading so the shape is visible. The survey publishes real Northern Ireland figures for exactly those baskets, weekly, and it is the number to use if you live there.
Primary sources for this page
- Consumer Council for Northern Ireland home heating oil price checkerA genuine weekly regional survey, the only one of its kind in the UK. The page returned HTTP 403 to our checker on 10 September 2026, so no basket figure from it is restated on this site. Follow the link for the current week.
- DESNZ Quarterly Energy Prices, table 4.1.1Monthly typical retail price of standard grade burning oil, the fuel sold to UK households as kerosene. Priced on the Monday nearest the 15th of the month, for deliveries of up to 1,000 litres, VAT at 5% included. This is the only official UK-wide domestic heating oil price series.
- Household Support Fund guidance for local councilsThe route through which most off-grid fuel help in England is actually distributed. Allocation rules are set by each council.
- VAT rates on domestic fuel and powerDomestic heating oil is charged at the reduced rate of 5% on qualifying quantities.