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The United States is heading into winter with distillate fuel stocks near multiyear lows. Distillate is the family of fuels that includes both diesel and home heating oil. Diesel hit $6.59 a gallon on 21 September, and Maine is already reporting heating oil at $5.77. If you heat a home or a church building with oil, kerosene, or propane, fill your tank, get your burner serviced, and set up a safe backup heat plan in October, before the cold weather pushes prices higher.
Key Judgments
Highly Likely: Residential heating oil prices will open the 2026 to 2027 heating season well above last winter, with the sharpest increases in New England and the rest of the Northeast.
Likely: Distillate inventories will stay below the five-year low through the end of the year, leaving little cushion if a cold snap, a refinery outage, or more trouble in the Strait of Hormuz hits.
Likely: Fuel dealers in the Northeast will fall behind on deliveries to will-call customers during the first hard cold stretch.
Possible: The federal government will release part of the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve this winter. Two Maine senators have asked for it, and no release had been announced as of this writing.
Possible: Home fires and carbon monoxide (CO) poisonings will rise as families turn the thermostat down and use space heaters, kerosene heaters, and generators to cover the gap.
Why This Winter Is Different
Diesel and heating oil come out of the same part of the refining process. When one gets tight, so does the other. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported the national average diesel price at $6.59 a gallon on 21 September, up $2.78 from the same week in 2025. A 28 September piece in Fortune, written by Vidya Mani for The Conversation, lays out the supply picture: more than six months of war with Iran and the near-complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries that intensified through 2026, and Russia suspending diesel exports in July. The article says that loss of supply “is expected to lead to higher energy prices for consumers in the coming winter.”
The EIA said the same thing in its 9 September Short-Term Energy Outlook. The agency forecast U.S. distillate inventories to fall below 100 million barrels in September and to “remain below the five-year (2021–2025) low through the end of 2026 and most of 2027.” It added that “low inventories may also contribute to higher prices for residential heating oil in the Northeastern United States,” with the effect sharpest in fall and winter, when refiners make less distillate and households burn more of it. The EIA’s weekly report for the week ending 11 September put distillate stocks at 107.9 million barrels, 13 percent below the five-year average.
Keep in mind that these numbers come in before the heating season starts. The EIA pauses its residential heating oil price survey from April through September and restarts it in October. The last reading, on 30 March 2026, was $5.535 a gallon. On 31 March 2025 it was $3.670.
What the Northeast Is Already Seeing
Maine is the early warning state, because about half of Maine households still heat with oil. The Maine Department of Energy Resources survey reported heating oil up 74 percent from a year ago, and Maine Public reported the statewide average at $5.77 a gallon on 24 September. The Natural Resources Council of Maine estimates Maine households could pay up to $1,260 more this winter than last, and $390 million more across the state. Jack Shapiro, the council’s climate and clean energy director, told Maine Public that Maine is more exposed to heating oil price swings than anywhere else in the country.
On 22 September, Senators Susan Collins and Angus King asked the president to release fuel from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve. The Department of Energy says the reserve holds about one million barrels, with 200,000 of those barrels stored in South Portland. No Department of Energy response had been reported. A million barrels sounds like a lot until you set it against a national distillate stock of about 108 million barrels. A release would ease a regional price spike for a short stretch, and families should plan as if it never comes.
Help for low-income households runs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Congress funded it at $4.045 billion for fiscal year 2026, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. I could not confirm next year’s funding level, so if someone in your family or your congregation will need help, get the application in through your state agency or local community action agency as soon as it opens.
Church Buildings
Many older church buildings run on oil-fired boilers, and a lot of them sit mostly empty from Monday to Saturday. That makes the church the building most likely to get caught short. Talk to your pastor and your trustees now about three items. First, fill the church tank in October, not after the first cold Sunday. Second, set a firm minimum temperature for the building during the week so the pipes don’t freeze. A burst pipe in a fellowship hall costs more than a winter of heating oil. Third, write down who checks the building during a cold snap, and how often.
If your church plans to open as a warming center, treat it as a safety operation. Put CO detectors in any room where a fuel-burning heater runs. Keep space heaters out of classrooms and nurseries. Assign a volunteer to walk the building every hour to check heaters and doors. Know which people in your congregation heat with oil or kerosene and live alone, and put someone’s name next to each of theirs for a phone call when the temperature drops. Your safety team already knows how to run a check-in list, so hand them this one.
Threat Assessment
Households and churches that heat with oil, kerosene, or propane carry the most exposure this winter, and New England, New York, and the rest of the Northeast carry the most of all, because oil heat is common there and the EIA expects low inventories to push residential prices up. The primary concern is cost. It is highly likely the heating season opens with oil above $5 a gallon in the Northeast, and a family on a fixed income can burn through a monthly budget in two deliveries. The secondary concern is supply timing. With inventories below the five-year low, it is likely that one hard cold stretch or one refinery outage will put dealers behind, and will-call customers get served last. Injury is the third concern. It is possible that home fires and CO poisonings will rise as people improvise heat to save money. Set your posture now: fill early, service the burner, put in CO detectors, write a one-room plan, and get the church building on the same schedule.
Biblical Lens
“Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” (Proverbs 6:6–8, ESV)
“The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.” (Proverbs 22:3, ESV)
The ant fills her stores while the weather is still good, and nobody has to order her to do it. October is our harvest window for fuel. The danger in Proverbs 22:3 is already in the EIA data and in the Maine price survey, and the prudent man acts on it before the first cold snap instead of after.
Leave a comment and tell us how you heat your home and what your backup plan is. Share this brief with your family and your preparedness group, and pass it to whoever handles the building at your church.
Thank you!
We heat with natural gas with a wood burning fireplace for backup.