Northeast Heating Bills to Skyrocket Amid Middle East Tensions
As tensions escalate in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, Americans in the Northeast are bracing for significantly higher heating bills this winter. The U.S.-Iran conflict and Russia-Ukraine war have driven up the price of diesel, which in turn will push up the cost of heating oil used by nearly 5 million households in the region.
According to William O'Neil, principal research analyst at S&P Global, heating oil and diesel prices tend to move together. 'The price of diesel historically has a pretty strong relationship to the price of heating oil because they're effectively chemically identical,' he said.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association projects that heating oil could cost 31 percent more this winter than last year, with households spending an average of $2,297 compared to $1,749. This would represent a nearly 50 percent increase over last year's prices.
Mark Wolfe, executive director of the association, warns that higher fuel costs will have severe economic impacts on lower- and middle-income Americans. 'When you have budgets where there's very little discretionary income, you have to cut back on groceries. You cut back on medicine. Any discretionary activities you don't do,' he said.