Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
For Danny McGibney, a Barre Town resident who heats his home with oil, the price cap plan he uses to lock in his fuel costs is substantially more expensive this year than last. Nonetheless, renewing it this summer in preparation for the chilly months ahead was clearly the right call, he said.
“It just guarantees that I won’t pay more than a certain amount,” McGibney said, though that price threshold will be roughly 20% higher than in 2025. “We don’t have choice over the price of oil.”
That much is clear. Recent months have seen wild changes in fuel prices worldwide, with fuel oil costs in Vermont rising from under $3.50 per gallon in September 2025 to over $5 per gallon by May 2026, state data indicates. Despite some price dips earlier this summer following diplomatic advances in the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, experts expect continued volatility in oil prices. Benchmark heating oil prices have risen in recent weeks, once again nearing their spring heights.
Few states are exposed to these price swings as acutely as Vermont.
More Vermonters use oil for heating than any other energy source, with U.S. Census Bureau data indicating over 35% of homes used fuel oil or kerosene in 2024. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which estimated in 2020 that kerosene makes up a tiny portion of that category, this reliance on oil makes the state “particularly vulnerable to heating oil shortages and price spikes during the winter months.”
Across the state, fuel vendors and buyers alike are eyeing the winter months with caution.
Price-control tools available to residents like McGibney — which include maximum or fixed rates as well as prebuy contracts — are used by about half of oil customers in northern New England, according to Matt Cota, a lobbyist who represents fuel dealers in Vermont. Those contracts, which sometimes require upfront payment or hundreds of dollars in separate fees, are a way for customers to hedge their bets against the volatile global supply chain, Cota said.
Unlike budget payment plans, which simply allow customers to even out their month-to-month utility payments without changing the overall cost, oil contracts lock in a price for a set amount of fuel. Some plans — like McGibney’s — allow prices to go down with the market, but not up above a set threshold.
This year, Cota said, there’s been a surge in people across the state choosing to pay more up front or overall to avoid the risk of getting stuck with even higher costs later. But for some, he noted, that’s a luxury beyond their means.
“Not everyone has the resources available to do this in summertime,” Cota said.
Fuel industry analysts project that prices are likely to decrease over the winter, which has allowed many Vermont dealers to offer oil packages this summer at a lower price per unit than today’s delivery would cost, Cota said. But prices have been fluctuating so quickly that some vendors in the state are offering less wiggle room than usual to their customers.
Rose Friedlander, who leads marketing at the Energy Co-op of Vermont, said the company had delayed launching its prebuy plan due to market instability.
“We weren’t able to launch it at our normal time, which left some members, you know, nervous for the upcoming season,” she said. “We have just seen incredible volatility since basically March.”
The co-op is also offering fewer such plans than usual for that reason, Friedlander said. And in the week since the program became available, she said in an interview recently, more than half the contracts had sold — a much faster rate than normal.
Anecdotally, Friedlander added, the company has also seen more interest from customers in secondary heat sources this year to decrease their dependence on fuel oil and defray higher costs.
“Things like a wood pellet stove or a ductless heat pump are both good options for people who are looking to maybe reduce their fuel usage through the winter,” she said.
McGibney, for his part, is seriously considering installing a woodstove, both to cut costs and provide a backup option in power outages. If he were certain of staying in his house for the long haul, he said, he would be thinking about switching over his central heating source too.
Matthew Smith, who leads public relations at Efficiency Vermont, agreed with Friedlander that heat pumps and wood could both be cost-effective supplements to central heating. Heat pump technology has improved and diversified in recent years, he said, with his organization estimating Vermonters have installed more than 80,000 of them in the last decade.
Weatherization improvements to a home — such as insulation and air sealing — can also save hundreds of dollars annually in heating oil costs, Smith added.
“Given Vermont’s old housing stock, weatherization is kind of the invisible element here,” he said. “It’s an investment that will help bring down the energy bills, regardless of how you’re heating your home.”
Vermont offers need-based financial assistance for weatherization and appliance costs through the Department for Children and Families and Efficiency Vermont.
