Ben Lowry: The cost of home heating oil has shot up, but it is still an OK time to buy it

(Click here to read Ben Lowry’s main column on Stormont indifference to the outrage in Hong Kong)​

Now it costs £110 more to fill a 900-litre tank of oil than it did a fortnight ago, due to the Israeli, then American attack on Iran.

And yet it is still not a particularly bad time in which to purchase such oil, compared to the much greater costs of oil after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The current average price of 500 litres of home heating oil in Northern Ireland has jumped to £315, and 900 litres has leapt to £552, compared to £249 and £440 on the week ending June 12 (according the NI consumer council). That was the lowest prices had been since early 2021, when the cost of 500l was about £200 and £330. But that latter price was unusually low due to the after effects of the pandemic and lockdown the year before.

I have previously written about how I was monitoring prices but somehow managed not to fill up when they were low in early summer of 2023. But even then it was about £280 for 500l and £495 for 900l – not that much lower than now.

Current prices are still far, far lower than February 2022 when it touched a brutal £1 a litre or more – thus £500+ for 500l and £900+ for 900l. We might have missed the bargain of recent weeks but prices are far from the worst they have been.

Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor