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The US Northeast is hurtling toward a winter heating crisis

December 24, 2022

The US Northeast is hurtling toward a winter heating crisis

Linda and her husband, Jeff Grossman, has been hit hard by the cost of home heating oil. She'll probably end up spending $3,200 this winter for oil, about 60 percent more than last winter.
Linda and her husband, Jeff Grossman, has been hit hard by the cost of home heating oil. She’ll probably end up spending $3,200 this winter for oil, about 60 percent more than last winter.MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF

In the most densely populated corner of the US, temperatures are about to drop after a stretch of unusually warm weather. And the signs of a winter crisis are already multiplying.

Heating oil delivered to New York is the priciest ever. Retailers in Connecticut are rationing it to prevent panic buying. New England’s stockpiles of diesel and heating oil — the same product, taxed differently — are a third of normal levels. Natural gas inventories are also below average. A Massachusetts-based utility is imploring President Joe Biden to prepare emergency measures to prevent a gas shortage.

Add some cold to the mix, and in the best-case scenario, Northeast consumers will shoulder the highest energy bills in decades this winter. The Biden administration, under pressure to tame prices ahead of the midterm elections, is considering ways to stash more diesel and gasoline in New England. In the worst-case scenario, a cluster of states with a combined economy bigger than Japan’s will run out of fuel to keep the lights on and heat homes and businesses.

“It’s going to be pretty bad,” said Marcus McGregor, head of commodities research at Conning Inc. “Diesel, heating oil and natural gas prices are through the roof. When you’re on a fixed salary, how does it impact your overall budget? It has to be bad.”

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World’s most-crucial fuel diesel heads for shortage touching everything

November 29, 2022

World’s most-crucial fuel diesel heads for shortage touching everything

Within the next few months, almost every region on the planet will face the danger of a diesel shortage

diesel
Photo: Bloomberg

No fuel is more essential to the global economy than diesel. It powers trucks, buses, ships and trains. It drives machinery for construction, manufacturing and farming. It’s burned for heating homes. And with the high price of natural gas, in some places it’s also being used to generate power.

Within the next few months, almost every region on the planet will face the danger of a diesel shortage at a time when supply crunches in nearly all the world’s energy markets have worsened inflation and stifled growth.

The toll could be enormous, feeding through into everything from the price of a Thanksgiving turkey to consumer bills for heating homes this winter. In the US alone, the surging diesel cost will mean a $100 billion hit to the economy, according to Mark Finley, an energy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy.

“Anything and everything that gets moved in our economy, diesel is there,” Finley said. “Moving stuff around is one thing. People potentially freezing to death is another.”

In the US, stockpiles of diesel and heating oil are at their lowest point ever for this time of year in data going back four decades. Northwest Europe is also facing a low buffer — inventories are forecast to hit a low this month and then tumble even more by March, shortly after sanctions come into play that will cut the region off from Russian seaborne supplies. Global export markets have gotten so tight that poorer countries like Pakistan are getting shut out, with suppliers failing to book enough cargoes to meet the nation’s domestic needs.

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New York, New England ration heating oil even before peak winter

October 23, 2022

New York, New England ration heating oil even before peak winter

The US Northeast is so short on heating oil that the fuel used to power home furnaces is being rationed even before the start of winter.

Some wholesalers in Connecticut are putting retailers on allocation, meaning they can only get a limited amount of fuel based on availability, according to Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, which represents around 600 family-owned retailers in the state. These retailers must in turn ration their customers.

The measure, designed to prevent panic buying, highlights the extreme fuel tightness across the New York Harbor and New England regions that has attracted the attention of the White House. National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told Bloomberg Television earlier this week that diesel inventories are “unacceptably low” and “all options are on the table” to bulk up supply and cut costs to consumers. In New England, where more people burn diesel — the same product as heating oil — to warm their homes than anywhere else in the country, stockpiles are a third of typical levels for this time of year, government data show.

A main hurdle to replenishing regional fuel supplies has been a steep, sustained backwardation in the diesel market. Backwardation happens when prompt deliveries are priced at a premium over deliveries in the future, which in effect causes product to lose value over time. “There’s just no incentive to store large amount of product,” said Michael Ferrante, president of the Massachusetts Energy Marketers Association

In addition to the scarcity, there’s also the cost. Wholesale heating oil in New York Harbor averaged $4.09 a gallon on Thursday, compared with $2.46 at the same time a year ago, according to data from price reporting agency Argus Media…

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Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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