Home Heating Oil heading back down again......?

BrotherBart said:

...Hard as it is to believe, it does gets cold here...

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He speaks the truth. Believe me, I spent 12 years there. It gets plenty cold. Rick

If I might, I would like to add a refinement to macman's oil to pellet cost conversion. You can get within 2 or 3 points of the actual conversion cost from oil to pellets if you add 10% to the pellet price after moving the decimal point over two places.
Oil 1.89 to Pellets 189.00 + 10% (19) = 208.00 (actual conversion price is 215.00). Still not perfect, but easy enough to do in your head.

Yeah can get pretty cold in VA.

from what I have read, some of the glut is from all those tankers of crude the saudis and others filled and then parked for later, now they have to unload it before it goes "bad" (sludge and other problems) and ruins the ships. I wonder if they are making any money off the whole process (renting ships etc.)

Here in upstate NY, I had gotten prices from 3 different oil dealers. I went with the lowest at $2.30 a gallon and locked in for the winter. It will cost me about $1.00 a day more than using pellets which are currently priced at $300 ton locally. So for the first time in 5 years, I will not be burning. For an extra buck a day, it's just not worth the extra work keeping the pellet stove filled and cleaned. In the past, myself and three others that have pellet stoves went in on bulk buying which got us a a discount from the retailer. All four of us are heating with other means this winter (propane and HHO). Our local dealer with the overpriced pellets has over 40 ton sitting in his store yard which heretofore he has never had that much stock sitting at any one time. I am hopeful that many more of us pellet burners will take a break from buying this year and send a message to the manufacturers and retailers that compressed sawdust cannot be sold to the masses for these kind of outrageous prices.

How do you really know when to sit on your pellets and to go with oil? Last month I paid $2.12 a gallon to fill my tank. I also just had 3 tons of pellets delivered for $884. Seems like oil is a bit cheaper right now, but if I start using my oil, and the price of oil goes up, won't it then cost more to fill my tank again? Or then do I just switch to the pellets and sit on my remaining oil until oil goes down again? Just seems like you really don't win either way!

Rob

Better buy your fuel oil now. It's not a supply and demand problem anymore. Thanks to OBUMMER devaluing the dollar, oil is expected to be $100 a barrel by the end of this year.

What a difference a month makes. Never think oil prices are going to be stable. The world itself isn`t.
That said we should all try to keep another heat source available but what do you do when oil is $400+ a gal and pellets are $315 a ton? No cheap alternative either way so IMO the best investment is still insulation, more efficient burners (boilers) , insulated windows and zoned heat.
It`s expensive to save money on heat whatever route you choose but what`s the alternative?

Dollar is going lower,Oil,Gold, and sliver going higher.

Long UHN (heating oil ETF) UNG (nt gas),GLD and SLV

July 30 Oil in New Hampshire= $195 August 4 Oil is now $205
Hold your tickets Ladies and Gentleman were going for our annual fall ride
Jim

Addendum: August 6 Fuel oil is now $213 a gal.

alexei27 said:

Another interesting story...this came out of the LA Times the other day (although the link is Newsday)...talking about a huge glut in oil supply. I don't know that we will see $30 a barrel again but it would be hard for crude prices to rise if this is true...

http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzoil0705,0,7762848.story

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oil prices CAN rise in a supply rich environment, and have read this through http://www.correntewire.com/great_american_bubble_machine_0


theres a thread in the ash can on it comment there if you have one. scary(if not "peel me off the ceiling" stuff IMHO.