Home heating oil company warns Boston customers of high prices: "We don't want to sticker shock them"
Oil prices are rising and colder weather is on the way.
Some home heating oil customers in the Boston area are wondering what they can do right now to save some money this winter.
Metro Energy in South Boston is already fielding nervous calls and they typically don't see a rush until the end of September. They've been making advance calls to their clients.
"We don't want to sticker shock them," said Metro Energy co-owner Debbie Markarian.
On Sept. 9, the cost of home heating oil was $5.89 a gallon. The company has been around for 100 years, but rarely have they seen prices this high.
"In my lifetime of working here, this is maybe the third time it's hit to this high point," Markarian told WBZ-TV.
She said the market has been volatile for the last three years. Typically, they see the cost of oil go down in the spring and summer, but instead that's when they saw a spike following the start of the Iran war. Metro Energy has started encouraging some customers to fill half of their oil tanks, hoping that when they need the next refill that the prices may have gone down.
"Maybe you should just do 100 gallons, and then let's see what happens, because that 100 gallons could probably sustain you maybe three to four weeks, and that might all change," said Markarian. "You never know, sometimes it will just drop and then it will go back up the next day."
On Wednesday, they saw a 20-cent spike in the market but chose not to raise prices. They were hoping it would drop by the end of the day.
"We felt terrible. We were hoping our customers would be getting a little bit of a break," said Markarian. "Even electric and gas, their prices have increased significantly."
If this coming winter is as harsh as the last, it could be a costly few months for customers.
"I don't know if I can do another one of those winters. I'm going to move to Florida. I'm just going to shut down," joked Markarian. "We cannot sustain these high prices, especially for the whole season. I'm hoping like a winning team, there is going to be winning and losing."
