Statista.com | by Katharina Buchholz
A colder-than-average winter forecast and high energy prices will quite significantly raise heating costs for many U.S. consumers this winter, the Energy Information Administration reports in its Winter Fuels Outlook released Thursday.
As the invasion of Ukraine and embargoes against Russian energy products have caused turmoil on global markets, oil price fluctuations are being more immediately passed on to consumers, for example through gasoline or heating oil prices rising quickly. Previously, heating oil consumers had experienced a big dip in cost due to the Covid-19 pandemic slashing global oil demand. In the case of gas and electricity, longer-running wholesale contracts are delaying price swings hitting consumers with full force, even though quickly rising prices in the spot market (where providers can buy energy on short notice) have also caused prices to tick up.
