Heating Oil

Toilet paper? Check. Eggs? Check.But what about heating oil? Or something to keep the pipes from bursting? Or enough salt to keep the mail carrier from becoming airborne?Baltimore has reacted to this week's cold snap as it usually does: by stocking up and digging in -- at the last minute."It's like grocery stores with the toilet paper," said Richard Phelps, president of Carroll Independent Fuel Co. of Baltimore, who pressed two of his cousins who work in the company's marketing department into driving delivery trucks to meet demand.

We have been hearing claims by our federal government that there is low to no inflation in this economy. The Federal Reserve continues an "easy money" policy, cranking up the printing presses at the U.S. Mint when the government needs more money to operate than it collects in taxes. And long term interest rates are the lowest in recent history. And deficits are at all time high levels. Yet gasoline and heating oil are up 40 percent since last year (and we can't blame the oil companies for the price of oil products)

Our 45-year-old furnace started to complain just like everyone else did when oil prices shot up. It died with three-quarters of a tank to spare during unseasonably warm weather. By the time our new gas furnace was scheduled to be installed, the weather was seasonably brisk, and we needed to dispose of the old oil tank and its contents.One heating contractor offered a plan where someone he recommended would take care of the tank and oil for a fee. Another contractor had offered to pump out the oil to a next-door neighbor (no farther)

Matthew Simmons, Texas author and investment banker and the guy who bet oil will hit $200 a barrel next year, feels pretty good. Oil has doubled to $70 recently as the economy shows signs of life, and "prices do seem poised for the next leg up," he says on the phone. "By sometime a year or two from now, we'll look back and say, yeah, prices were really cheap." Perhaps the leading proponent of the idea that oil is running out, Simmons probably won't win his bet, made with New York Times columnist John Tierney.

PHILADELPHIA -- At the close of another heating season, I am disturbed by heating oil supplier practices around the country that suggest suppliers don't believe that consumers are smart. The heating oil market operates with suppliers driving a truck to an oil terminal and buying the oil for delivery to residential users, with the cost marked up to the consumer. Residential oil prices today range from $1.10 to $1.75 per gallon. They reflect a mark-up to the consumer of 35 cents to $1 a gallon.

Howard Louis Staley, a retired heating oil salesman who was active in the McDonogh School alumni association, died Sunday of complications of pneumonia at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 84 and lived in Timonium before moving to the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville 12 years ago. Born and raised in Baltimore, he was a 1937 McDonogh graduate and attended the Johns Hopkins University. During World War II, he served in the Navy on the destroyer escort USS Farquhar in the South Pacific.

Services for Robert E. Horney, founder of a heating oil company and an ice cream company, will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Bruzdzinski Funeral Home, 1407 Eastern Ave., Essex.Mr. Horney, who was 86, died Saturday after a heart attack at his home on Wye Road in Middle River.In 1932, he started the Quality Oil Co., which makes heating oil deliveries in the Essex-Middle River area. He operated the company until he retired about 20 years ago.He also started the Liberty Bell Ice Cream Co., which sold confections from trucks in neighborhoods in the same area for about 20 years in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

The impact of the Persian Gulf crisis on heating oil supplies and prices this winter is impossible to predict, but experts say they have seen little evidence so far to suggest a repeat of last December when a record cold snap led to shortages and drastic price increases.After Iraq invaded Kuwait last month, prices for heating oil jumped to $1 a gallon. However, the supply has been steady. The Bush administration fears a shortage could develop late in the year, but experts say this will depend upon whether other oil-producing nations step up their output sufficiently to compensate for the loss of embargoed oil.In the back of everyone's mind: last year's disastrous December when prices shot up by an average of 45 cents a gallon, to $1.40 and higher, along the East Coast.

It's been a while since the Hechinger's hardware and lumber store at Northwood Shopping Center sold grass seed in November.But, over the weekend, a customer came in asking for it and Glen Stone, the store manager, scrounged around and found a 25-pound bag in storage. "He just wouldn't get out of here without it," Stone said.With temperatures expected to flirt with records today and tomorrow, businesses all over the city are adjusting to spring in November. Heating oil sales, usually gushing this time of year, have slowed to a dribble and prices may drop as a result.

Bonnie Chandler's blood is still boiling about the partnership of former Congressman Joe Kennedy and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez supplying free heating oil to poor Americans this past winter. Her beef has nothing to do with politics, although some critics have called the free fuel offer a publicity stunt by Kennedy and an attempt by Chavez to embarrass the U.S. government and the man he calls the "devil," President Bush. The 63-year-old Harford County resident also has no gripe against philanthropy: She is, after all, one of those who needs help to heat her home.

The thick, milky white liquid looks like Elmer's glue, though it's greasy to the touch. It has a sweet, alcohol smell. It's not your father's heating oil, to be sure. But it will do the same job, says Cary J. Claiborne, and a lot more cleanly. Claiborne is president and chief executive officer of New Generation Biofuels, a Florida-based startup that's producing fuel from vegetable and soybean oil at a small production plant it set up this year in southern Baltimore. "It's very biodegradable," Claiborne says as he dips his finger into a small bottle holding a sample of a recent batch.

Citgo, the Venezuelan government's U.S.-based oil subsidiary, reversed course yesterday and said it will continue shipments of heating oil to poor families in the United States, including in Maryland. Former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, head of Citizens Energy, the Boston-based nonprofit that distributes the fuel, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez intervened directly. The announcement came two days after Kennedy said Citgo was suspending fuel assistance, with the company noting falling oil prices and the world economic crisis.

Maryland residents who were hoping to receive 100 gallons of free heating oil through a program sponsored by the Venezuelan government won't receive that benefit this year. Because of dropping fuel prices and the global economic crisis, Citgo, Venezuela's Texas-based oil subsidiary, has indefinitely suspended social programs including support for a heating oil subsidy for the poor. Boston-based Citizens Energy, a nonprofit that administered the program with Citgo, announced the news yesterday.

Maryland families, already struggling with high gasoline and food costs, will face a major new energy challenge within a few months. The price of home heating oil, used by nearly 38,000 low-income families here, is likely to be more than a third higher than it was last winter. Right now, it's more than twice the $2-a-gallon price of three years ago. The increased cost compounds the problems of many low- and moderate-income families who are struggling to pay overdue utility bills and see no relief in sight.

America is addicted to oil. So when the price of oil doubles and then threatens to double again, there are large economic and social consequences. Feeling our pain, politicians want to pressure OPEC to increase production or tap the nation's strategic petroleum reserve. Such cures are unlikely to be effective. The world's oil supply is limited, global demand is growing fast and it's time for Congress to impose a much more efficient use of oil through tougher fuel economy and tighter building standards.

Pre-winter energy update: The cost of heating oil is way up, along with the cost of crude and gasoline. The cost of natural gas is comparatively lower. And the wholesale cost of electricity is down, too, though it won't do you any good. BGE has locked into (higher) winter prices already, and, unlike last year, nobody is offering to undercut BGE's standard price and pass along the favorable wholesale prices. This year, those who heat their homes with natural gas are likely to be better off than people depending on oil furnaces or electric heat.

An Eastern Petroleum tanker overturned on a steep curve in Gambrills yesterday morning, spilling about 1,000 gallons of heating oil, according to Anne Arundel County officials. The tanker driver told investigators that the truck's brakes malfunctioned and that he was unable to negotiate the tight curve on Dicus Mill Road, said Anne Arundel police Sgt. William Collier. The truck overturned about 8:30 a.m., spilling fuel on the bank and down the hill, Collier said.

About 300 to 400 gallons of oil spilled into Sucker Branch Stream off Rogers Avenue in Ellicott City yesterday after a heating boiler broke at the Rockland Art Center.Environmental cleanup crews say it will take two to three days to clean up the spill.There is no danger to residents' drinking water or to the surrounding wildlife, said David Williams, an emergency responder with the Maryland Department of the Environment.About 8: 30 p.m., residents reported seeing "an oily reddish film" floating on the water's surface, said Lt. Chris Cangemi, a fire spokesman.

The record prices Marylanders paid to keep cool last summer will soon give way to eye-popping winter heating bills - no matter what the fuel. Households heating with electricity can expect bills to be about 50 percent more than a year ago - assuming no adjustment for weather variances - as a result of Baltimore Gas & Electric's rate increase in June. The federal government projected last week that average U.S. homes heating with natural gas would pay 10 percent more this winter, while those burning fuel oil could expect to pay 22 percent more.

Bonnie Chandler's blood is still boiling about the partnership of former Congressman Joe Kennedy and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez supplying free heating oil to poor Americans this past winter. Her beef has nothing to do with politics, although some critics have called the free fuel offer a publicity stunt by Kennedy and an attempt by Chavez to embarrass the U.S. government and the man he calls the "devil," President Bush. The 63-year-old Harford County resident also has no gripe against philanthropy: She is, after all, one of those who needs help to heat her home.