Ben Lowry: Is this a good time to buy home heating oil in Northern Ireland? Yes it is, yet it is also a terrible time to buy it

(To read Ben Lowry on Tourism NI determinedly using ‘the north’ instead of Northern Ireland, click on this link here)

​The reason I make such a contradictory comment is that oil prices have dipped to the lowest point after three months during which they have been at brutal levels. Yet they are nonetheless higher than they have been for most of the last decade.

In other words, it is a grim time in which to fill your oil tank. But it is mightily less grim than in was in most of March and April.

This week, for the first time since February, I saw a competitive retailer in greater Belfast offering oil for sale for less than 90p a litre (£784 for 900 litres, £446 for 500ltrs). This is well down on the average of about £1.15 a litre (900 ltrs £1,050) that has prevailed since the US/Israeli bombardment of Iran stepped up in early March.

The recent drop has not been large but even so it does mean you buy 900 litres now you are saving a full £300 on the average price of £1,089 for 900ltrs in the first week of April. That was when America-Iran tensions were worsening.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, I began to write intermittent columns about my own experience of buying home heating oil in NI, and I rehearsed some of my blunders and successes.

It was only after Vladimir Putin’s war got under way, sending oil prices sky high, that I came to appreciate why for many years we published oil prices each day in the print edition of the the newspaper (now such prices can be readily found online, so there is less demand for them in print). No wonder people across Northern Ireland kept an eye on oil costs, then filled their tank when the price seemed fair – as I now try to do. Prior to Moscow sending its tanks across the border towards Kyiv, my oil buying was motivated by one factor – my tank running out.

After following oil closely for four years, my rule of thumb is:

• Oil costing more than £1 a litre (£900 for 900 litres or £500 for 500 litres) is appallingly high

• Oil costing more 75p a litre (£675 for 900ltrs, £375 for 500 ltrs) is very expensive

• Oil costing from 50p a litre (£450 for 900ltrs, £250 for 500 ltrs) to 75p is reasonable

• Under 50p a litre is a bargain

Last spring and summer Northern Ireland entered a period in which home heating oil was consistently priced between 50p and 55p a litre – the cost of 900 ltrs averaged about £475. The bitter concerns and complaints about the intolerable cost of heating a home that had been heard after the Ukraine invasion disappeared. Even as 2025 drew to a close and winter began to appear, prices only edged up to almost £300 for 500 ltrs and more than £500 for 900 ltrs.

The turning point was the assassination of the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 1.

According to the NI Consumer Council oil archive, the cost of 300 ltrs was £307 and 900 ltrs was £537 in the last week of February, shooting up to £556 and £948 respectively that following first week of March. It got worse: for each of the six weeks after March 5, the average price for 500ltrs was around £590, while 900ltrs was £1,000+. In April, those average prices edged down to around £520 and £920 respectively.

With prices dipping again this week, why not wait for further falls? Well, some people are doing just that, me among them. But it runs the risk of renewed confrontation between America and Iran and a return to prices at Easter levels. In fact, with talk of a serious oil and diesel supply crisis in the summer if the Strait of Hormuz is not opened, it might reach the sort of eye-watering levels seen in the first week of March 2022 after Ukraine was invaded, when 500ltrs in NI hit £660 and 900 ltrs £1,200.

This province is particularly vulnerable to oil price spikes because far more households here, 60%, use it to heat their homes than in any other part of the UK or Ireland.

It would be annoying to buy now and then see prices continuing to fall, so you could hedge by buying 300 or 400 litres.

I am confident I have enough oil to last me to the new year so I am holding fire, but I am mindful of Christmas 2022 when I thought I had enough oil to get me through the festive period but suddenly feared humiliation if I was wrong and bought in a panic days before December 25 at £1 litre. Then in the summer of 2023, I failed to buy when prices were down at 55p a litre, before they rose in the autumn.

Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor