This is the largest single data problem in the American heating oil market and almost nobody states it out loud. For six months of every year there is no new federal residential price, and the number on every price page quietly ages while continuing to look current.
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. The lag mark under this reading is at five ticks of five and will stay there until the survey resumes in October.
The survey calendar
| Period | Federal residential print | What we show |
|---|---|---|
| October to March | Weekly, on Monday | The current week, lag under seven days |
| April to September | None | The last March print with its true lag, plus the wholesale series labeled as wholesale |
| First week of October | Survey resumes | The lag mark drops from five ticks to one |
What we publish instead, and what we refuse to
We publish the last retail print with its lag shown honestly, and we publish the daily wholesale series alongside it, labeled as wholesale, on the reconciliation page. The wholesale print of $5.21 on 15 September 2026 is 8 days old and is genuinely current. It is also not a retail price and is never presented as one.
What we refuse to do is model a summer retail price by adding a modeled spread to the wholesale figure and printing the result as a residential number. That is what turns a labeled proxy into a fabricated price, and it is the single easiest way to be wrong in public.
A five month old figure marked five of five is more useful than a current figure nobody can trace.
Is summer actually cheaper?
On the federal series the question cannot be answered directly, because the series does not collect in summer. What can be checked is the British record, which is monthly and continuous all year. On the ten years to 2025 the cheapest month there was May at 47.30p and the dearest was October at 53.20p, a swing of 5.90p.
That is a real late spring and early summer discount, and it is small. It is worth having if you have tank room and cash in June. It is not worth running the tank low in March to chase.
What this means for a summer fill
If you are ordering between April and September, understand that no public retail benchmark exists for the week you are ordering in. Ring two dealers rather than one, because the usual check on a bad quote, comparing it against a published average, is not available to you.
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.
- 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.
- CME Group NY Harbor ULSD futuresThe contract that most people still call NYMEX heating oil. Renamed NY Harbor ULSD in 2013.
- 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.