Heating Oil Prices = Rude Surprise
Steve Verdon
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Monday, January 9, 2006
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7 comments
Barry Ritholtz just had his heating oil delivery and the price was a nice $435.52. Ouch. Barry is right, many are going to be in for a rude surprise if they haven’t been following the heating oil/natural gas issue lately.
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.
Oil delivered today: $520 at 2.349/ gal.
Continuing to burn wood…
I just learned last week that due to some snafu, our natural gas utility hasn’t been billing us all winter. (I thought my wife was paying the bill, she thought I was, etc.)
So I should get a bill next month for all the gas we’ve been using. Erk.
Our gas contract was just up for renewal. I think we were paying about 68 cents a therm before and the new rate is $1.42.
Anderson,
If the bill is very large, call them up, politely explain that they screwed up and ask for a payment plan. If they get prissy about it, start talking about taking it to your local public utility comission for them to figure out. However, chances are it wont get that far. Most utilities have some sort of built in procedure for these kinds of things.
Chavez appearantly promised to deliver at lower prices for the really poor in some States.
My gas bill has been climbing… last month it was $150, this month $200. We’re not doing anything different, and there are no leaks in the line. We already keep the heater no higher than 65 — and we’d turn it lower if we weren’t afraid our cats would freeze.
At least we don’t have kids. Yet. But people with children have to keep the heat up higher, don’t they? If I had to keep the house at 72 all winter, I’d be bankrupt.
Thanks, Steve. I was hoping I could work out something like that, though Mississippi utilities seem to be managed by Soviet refugee bureaucrats, insofar as customer service is concerned.