This site publishes two live readings and a set of supporting series. Each one is tied to a publisher, a series identifier and two dates: the date the publisher released it, and the date we last looked. The gap between those two dates is the lag, and the lag is printed next to the number rather than buried.
The three tiers
| Tier | What it covers | How it may appear | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Delivered retail price from a named public survey | As a live reading, with source, series and lag | EIA SHOPP weekly residential, DESNZ QEP table 4.1.1 |
| B | Wholesale, rack, spot or futures | Only as a labelled wholesale proxy, never as a household price | NY Harbor ULSD spot |
| C | Commercial index values, aggregator quote screenshots, supplier average claims | Cited as existing. Never restated as our figure | Seller-submitted comparison indices |
The two live readings
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.
EIA State Heating Oil and Propane Program / W_EPD2F_PRS_NUS_DPG / published 30 March 2026 / checked 23 September 2026 / lag 177 daysthree to six months oldtier A
Last in-season print. The survey pauses after March and resumes in October, so this figure ages all summer.
EIA NY Harbor ULSD spot price / EER_EPD2DXL0_PF4_RGC_DPG / published 15 September 2026 / checked 23 September 2026 / lag 8 daysone to four weeks oldtier B
Wholesale barge price at New York Harbour. Not a delivered retail price. Published here only as a labelled proxy. Shown only as a wholesale proxy on the reconciliation page.
What we do when a series goes dark
The American residential survey collects from October to March. Between April and September there is no new federal retail print, so every federal page shows a spring figure through the summer. On 23 September 2026 the national print is 177 days old, and the lag mark under it is five ticks of five.
The alternative would be to substitute a wholesale price and let it read as retail. We do not do that. The wholesale series is on the site, on its own page, labelled, and reconciled against the last retail print so the size of the gap between the two is visible rather than assumed.
A number without a reading line does not ship.
The four refusals
- 01No inferred price for a supplier that does not publish one. If a company quotes by address, the page says so and stops there.
- 02No per-postcode or per-ZIP page. A page generated for a postcode with no postcode-level data behind it is a thin page wearing a local name.
- 03No use of "licensed" or "registered" for a UK company. The HMRC controlled oil scheme is a statutory approval to handle rebated fuel, not a consumer register and not a quality mark.
- 04No interpolation into a gap. If a series has not printed, the last print stands with its true lag and the page says why.
The UK problem, stated plainly
Great Britain has no daily or weekly official retail kerosene series. The DESNZ monthly table is the only official UK-wide domestic figure, priced on the Monday nearest the fifteenth for deliveries up to 1,000 litres with VAT at 5% included. That is the reading we publish, at 90.01p, 27 days old.
Northern Ireland is different. The Consumer Council runs a genuine weekly regional survey there with 300, 500 and 900 litre baskets. It is the best consumer price instrument in the UK and we link to it rather than copying figures out of it, because on the day we checked, its page refused our request.
What gets checked, and how often
| Series | Publisher cadence | Our check | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| DESNZ QEP 4.1.1 kerosene | Monthly | Daily | A |
| EIA SHOPP residential No. 2 | Weekly, October to March | Daily | A |
| EIA NY Harbor ULSD spot | Daily | Daily | B |
| EIA residential propane | Weekly, October to March | Weekly | A |
| EIA Natural Gas Monthly | Monthly | Monthly | A |
| EIA Electric Power Monthly | Monthly | Monthly | A |
| Consumer Council NI checker | Weekly | Weekly, link only | A |
Primary sources for this page
- EIA State Heating Oil and Propane ProgramWeekly residential delivered price of No. 2 heating oil, national and by state. Collected October to March. The survey pauses after the last March print and resumes in October, which is why every federal page shows March data all summer.
- 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.
- 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.
- CME Group NY Harbor ULSD futuresThe contract that most people still call NYMEX heating oil. Renamed NY Harbor ULSD in 2013.
- EIA New York Harbor ULSD spot priceDaily wholesale barge price. Published on this site only as a labelled wholesale proxy and never as a retail price.