18th September 2026
For households in rural Scotland that depend on heating oil, the timing could hardly be worse.
Summer is ending, the nights are drawing in and many households will soon be thinking about filling their oil tanks for the winter.
Unfortunately, the heating-oil market is moving in the opposite direction.
UK kerosene prices have risen sharply during September, with the national average for 1,000 litres reported at about 120.9p per litre including VAT on 17 September, according to PriceTank. Its September average so far is about 103.1p a litre.
Those figures are averages and individual suppliers can be considerably cheaper or more expensive, particularly in remote parts of Scotland.
But the direction is clear.
And this time there is a worrying combination of factors behind the increase.
Oil has moved back above $100
The immediate background is the extraordinary disruption to the international oil market.
Brent crude has been trading above $100 a barrel, reaching much higher levels during the recent escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
On 17 September, Brent was around $104 a barrel, having fallen from recent highs as Saudi Arabia found alternative ways to move some of its oil.
That fall is encouraging, but it would be premature to assume that the crisis is over.
The Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted. Preliminary shipping data showed only three commercial vessels passing through the strait on Wednesday, compared with a recent ten-day average of 17.
Hormuz is one of the world's most important energy routes.
If shipping remains restricted, the consequences go well beyond the price of crude oil.
Heating oil is also affected by diesel shortages
This is particularly important for Scottish heating-oil users.
Heating oil is a middle distillate, part of the same broad family of refined petroleum products as diesel and gasoil.
And it is the refined products market that is currently showing some of the greatest pressure.
Reuters reports that European gasoil and US ultra-low-sulphur diesel futures have reached record levels as supplies have been disrupted in the Middle East and Russia. Refineries are also increasingly prioritising diesel production because of strong demand.
This helps explain why the price of heating oil can remain high even when crude oil temporarily falls.
It is not just about the price of a barrel of crude.
It is also about the cost of turning crude into the particular products consumers need, and whether those products are readily available.
For anyone watching the price of their oil tank, that distinction is important.
Scottish households are particularly exposed
Heating oil is not the dominant heating fuel across Britain, but it is important in rural areas where mains gas is unavailable.
That includes large parts of the Highlands and Islands.
For a household with a 1,000-litre tank, a difference of 20p per litre represents £200.
At 100p a litre, 1,000 litres costs £1,000.
At 120p, it costs £1,200.
At £1.30, it becomes £1,300.
And that is before considering how much oil a household may actually use during a cold Scottish winter.
For an older or poorly insulated property, the annual requirement can be several thousand litres.
A prolonged period of high prices therefore becomes a significant household expense rather than simply an irritating increase.
Could heating oil reach £1.30 a litre?
This is where forecasting becomes difficult.
Nobody can reliably predict the exact price of heating oil several months from now because so much depends on events that cannot currently be known.
There are, however, some useful guideposts.
If Brent settles back towards $90-$100 a barrel and the disruption to refined products eases, heating oil could fall significantly from today's levels.
If crude remains around $100-$120 and diesel and gasoil supplies remain tight, heating oil could stay around today's high levels or move higher.
And if the Middle East disruption becomes substantially worse, prices could move into territory that would have seemed extraordinary only a few months ago.
That means £1.30 a litre cannot be ruled out, but it should not be presented as a forecast.
It is better regarded as a plausible stress scenario if the current supply problems worsen.
There is another reason for caution.
The oil market can move down almost as quickly as it moves up.
Saudi Arabia is already finding alternative routes for some crude exports, while there are signs that damaged infrastructure could gradually be restored. Those developments have helped bring Brent down from recent highs.
If shipping through the region returns to something approaching normal, the oil price could fall considerably.
But winter demand is approaching
There is an uncomfortable timing issue for Scottish households.
The heating season is approaching just as the oil market is experiencing exceptional uncertainty.
That means households are potentially buying more heating oil at precisely the time when international markets are under pressure.
The latest UK heating-oil data already show how rapidly prices can change.
PriceTank recorded a national average of 115.1p per litre excluding VAT for 1,000 litres on 17 September, compared with a September monthly average of 103.1p.
The exact price available to a household will depend on the quantity ordered, location, supplier, delivery costs and competition between local suppliers.
In rural Scotland, transport costs can also make a difference.
So the national average should be treated as an indication of the market rather than a price that every household will pay.
What should households do?
The temptation when prices rise sharply is to panic and order as much oil as possible.
That is not necessarily the best approach.
Anyone with enough storage space might consider buying in stages rather than trying to guess the absolute bottom or top of the market.
Shopping around between suppliers can also make a surprisingly large difference.
A household ordering 1,000 litres should not assume that the first quoted price is necessarily the best available price.
There is also a strong argument for looking at the amount of heat being produced rather than simply the price of oil.
Improving insulation, reducing draughts and using heating controls more effectively can permanently reduce the amount of oil required.
For some households, even relatively modest improvements can mean that the next price increase has a smaller effect on the family budget.
The electricity alternative is changing the calculation
There is another important issue for Scottish households.
Electricity prices are also high compared with historic levels, but the calculation has changed considerably for households using modern heating systems, particularly heat pumps.
A highly insulated house with a heat pump can produce considerably more heat from each unit of electricity than a simple electric heater.
That does not mean every oil-heated Scottish home should immediately replace its boiler.
The cost of installation, the condition of the property, insulation, radiators and electricity tariff all matter.
But persistently volatile heating-oil prices make the economics of reducing oil consumption increasingly interesting.
For some rural households, the most realistic approach may be a mixture of technologies rather than an immediate complete replacement of the existing heating system.
The bigger problem is uncertainty
What makes this episode different from an ordinary rise in oil prices is the sheer number of variables involved.
There is the war involving Iran.
There is the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz.
There is the developing situation involving the Houthis and the Bab el-Mandeb shipping route.
There are attacks on oil infrastructure.
There are disrupted Russian refining supplies.
There are concerns about diesel availability.
And there is the approaching European winter.
The result is an oil market where prices can change dramatically on a single piece of news.
On 17 September, for example, oil prices were falling because Saudi Arabia was finding alternative ways to move crude and because expectations for restoration of damaged infrastructure had improved.
Yet the same day's shipping data showed just how abnormal the situation around Hormuz remains.
Both things can be true at the same time.
A winter price shock is possible, but not inevitable
The sensible conclusion for Scottish households is therefore not that heating oil is inevitably heading to £1.30 or £1.50 a litre.
It is that the risk of another expensive winter has increased.
There is still a route back to substantially lower prices if the geopolitical situation improves and oil and refined-product supplies return to normal.
But there is also a route to considerably higher prices if the disruption continues through the winter.
That leaves households with a difficult problem.
Nobody knows whether today's price will eventually look cheap or expensive.
For people who depend on heating oil, the most useful response may therefore be to concentrate less on predicting the exact price of the next litre and more on reducing how many litres they need.
Every litre saved is one less litre that has to be bought, whatever happens to the international oil market.
And for rural Scotland, that could prove to be the most reliable protection against another winter of volatile energy prices.