Oil heat customers could see lower prices this winter

There's some good news for consumers who use oil to heat their homes: per-gallon prices are continuing to drop several cents below where they were just a few years ago.

Throughout New Jersey, consumers are seeing gasoline prices dip below $3 per gallon in some places. Heating oil prices are beginning to mirror this trend, thanks to an increase in the domestic production of crude oil. In fact, crude oil closed at just over $90 a barrel on Monday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Tom Kloza, an oil analyst with GasBuddy.com, says the current price of heating oil is cheaper and he expects the prices to hold steady as winter approaches.

Heating oil customers can lock in a per-gallon price of $3.50 or less for the coming winter, Kloza said. In addition, some dealers in New Jersey are offering heating oil as low as $2.99 per gallon right now. That price reduction has the potential to add up, especially for homeowners that use a high volume of oil to heat their households in the colder months.

"If you consider a family using 1,000 gallons (of oil), you know the difference between $4.25 and $3.50 is about $750 dollars for the winter," said Kloza, who last year predicted a slight spike in the price of heating oil.

"We're running on all cylinders," Kloza said.