New England Energy Tracker is a free, independent site that tracks home heating oil (No. 2 fuel oil) prices in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. It puts three kinds of numbers side by side: the prices local delivery dealers post each day, the official weekly state surveys, and the wholesale price those dealers buy against. The aim is to show whether today's price is high or low for your state, and which way it is heading.
Everything on the site is built from public information:
The Fuel costs page ranks heating oil, propane, natural gas, electricity and firewood for each state by the cost of a million BTU of heat delivered into the house. It uses the oil prices above together with weekly propane and monthly natural gas and electricity prices from federal energy statistics and a New England reference price for firewood, and spells out every step of the conversion.
Visitors can share what they paid for a delivery, either by photographing the delivery ticket or by typing the numbers in. These entries appear on the charts and state pages marked as user submitted, by town, alongside the posted dealer prices and surveys. They are kept separate from the dealer and survey figures and never change them.
User-submitted prices are reported by the public and are not independently verified. Each one is compared with that week's going rate for the state, and an entry that is far out of line is set aside for review before it is shown. Kerosene deliveries are listed but left out of the heating oil averages.
For each state, the morning update keeps dealer prices posted in the last 14 days and counts each dealer once, at its most recent posted price, so a dealer that serves several zones doesn't tilt the result. From those prices it records the lowest, mean, median and highest. Survey and wholesale figures are shown as published.
Dealer prices are read every morning at about 8:40 AM Eastern. Weekly survey and wholesale figures usually come out midweek and appear here the next morning. Each page shows the date of the reading it is based on.
Posted prices are what dealers list publicly; they aren't independently verified. Delivery minimums, payment terms and service areas vary, so confirm the price with the dealer before you order. Vermont has no current dealer listings, so it shows the state survey only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy from any dealer or at any time.
This site is independent and not affiliated with any oil dealer, government agency or data provider. It may show advertising to cover its costs; ads never change the prices shown.
Questions, corrections or a dealer price that looks wrong? Email snown91@gmail.com.