The biggest reason for the increase: the rising price of a barrel of crude, the main component of heating oil, as demand rises in emerging markets such as China and the Middle East.
“Crude prices haven’t really been this high [before] going into the winter,’’ said Chris Lafakis, an economist with Moody’s Analytics, a forecasting firm in West Chester, Pa.
During the past few years, heating oil prices have been higher, but in the summer months, usually dropping before winter hits. Prices hit record highs in the summer of 2008.
Any increase in heating oil prices has the potential to strain already cash-strapped residents in the Northeastern states, which account for 80 percent of the nation’s households that heat with oil.
People are streaming into Action for Boston Community Development Inc., an agency that funnels state and federal heating assistance to needy families in Boston, Brookline, and Newton. The agency has already received 12,000 applications for assistance.
“We have more people coming in than last year because people are poor,’’ said president John J. Drew. “People are running out of unemployment, they’re getting kicked off welfare, they’re unemployed and underemployed.’’
Hyde Park homeowner John Murphy, a 68-year-old with advanced prostate cancer, said he depends onheating assistance during the winter to help stretch his annual income of about $18,000 from Social Security disability payments. Last winter, his heating bill totaled $1,600.30 - mainly to heat the one room he spends most of his time in.
“You take out another two hundred bucks, I’ll have to cut back somehow,’’ said Murphy, who keeps his thermostat at 68 degrees during the day, then lowers it by four degrees and sleeps in long johns and socks.
But, he added, “I don’t really know what I can cut back on. I’ve got my groceries down to a minimum, [and] I can’t cut back on electricity. I’ve already done that. I can’t put the thermostat any lower. I can’t do 60 [degrees] where I walk around with a pair of mittens.’’
