Northeast Heating Oil Reserve
Protection Against Winter Fuel Shortages
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report that concluded that a federally created regional reserve of heating oil, the oil consumers use to heat their homes, would make economic sense only at times when private stocks are unusually low and consumer prices unusually high. Such a confluence of factors had occurred in the winter of 1996, and most experts believed a recurrence in the near future was highly unlikely. Winter of 1999-2000 In January 2000, however, temperatures in New England plunged to nearly 24 percent colder than normal. Prices for heating oil increased dramatically. As a…
