NY Harbor Heating Oil Spot Price (1986–2026)
The New York Harbor No. 2 Heating Oil Spot Price is the daily FOB wholesale price of home heating oil at the US Northeast’s main distribution hub, published by the EIA since 1986 — one of the longest daily refined-product price histories available. Heating oil is the continuous, market-cleared distillate benchmark behind the seasonal residential series, and long the basis for the NYMEX distillate contract. It ranges from $0.284 (1999) to $5.152 (May 2022), sitting at $3.22 in mid-2026.
Dataset: NY Harbor Heating Oil Spot Price (1986–2026) · Updated 2026-07-27
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Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) · series EER_EPD2F_PF4_Y35NY_DPG
Macro Takeaway
This is the wholesale spot price, not the retail heating bill: it clears every trading day at the terminal, upstream of the delivered residential price. Its advantage over the residential series is that it is continuous — no heating-season-only gaps — making it the usable distillate benchmark year-round. For a different view, see the 3-2-1 crack spread history since 1986.
Heating oil is chemically near-identical to diesel; the two are the same middle-of-the-barrel distillate. This series therefore doubles as a distillate market signal, and its divergence from crude reflects distillate-specific inventory and refining dynamics, especially cold-weather Northeast demand. A parallel read: how commodities reach a portfolio.
With a 40-year daily history, it is one of the most robust refined-product series for volatility and correlation analysis — long enough to span multiple oil regimes at daily resolution, from the 1990s cheap-oil era through the 2022 distillate crunch.
Dataset Overview
| Indicator | NY Harbor Heating Oil Spot Price (1986–2026) |
|---|---|
| Geography | United States |
| Frequency | Daily |
| Period | 1986 – present |
| Variables | date, heating_oil_spot |
| Format | CSV, Excel (XLSX) |
| Sources | U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) |
| Last updated | — |
Dataset Variables
The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
date | Date (YYYY-MM-DD) | Reference date of the observation |
heating_oil_spot | Float | New York Harbor No. 2 heating oil spot price FOB, dollars per gallon |
A value of 3.216 means heating oil cleared at $3.22 per gallon FOB New York Harbor that day.
Download the Complete Dataset
The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats.
EIA Direct API Access
The underlying data comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration API v2 (route petroleum/pri/spt, series EER_EPD2F_PF4_Y35NY_DPG). An EIA API key is free from the EIA developer portal.
Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset
https://eco3min.fr/dataset/eia/heating-oil-spot-ny.csv
This URL returns the complete, cleaned dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool — no key required.
Using the Dataset in Python
import pandas as pd
url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/eia/heating-oil-spot-ny.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])
print(f"Latest: {df['heating_oil_spot'].iloc[-1]:.3f} USD/gallon")
print(df.tail())
Using the Dataset in R
library(readr) url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/eia/heating-oil-spot-ny.csv" df <- read_csv(url) tail(df) summary(df$heating_oil_spot)
Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.
Methodology
The EIA compiles daily spot assessments at the New York Harbor trading hub from market sources. FOB means free-on-board at the terminal — a wholesale price excluding delivery and retail markup.
This dataset is refreshed daily (Mon–Sat) via automated pull from the EIA API v2; new observations appear with each source release.
Data Quality & Provider Notes
- Frequency. Daily, one of the longest daily refined-product series (since 1986).
- Wholesale, not retail. FOB terminal price; the delivered residential price adds distribution and margin.
- Distillate proxy. Near-identical to diesel; a middle-of-the-barrel market signal.
- Continuity advantage. Unlike residential heating-oil prices, this trades year-round with no seasonal gap.
- Known gaps. Non-trading days only; continuous daily coverage since June 1986.
Common Pitfalls When Using This Series
- Reading it as the home heating bill. This is the wholesale terminal price; households pay a delivered retail price well above it.
- Ignoring the diesel linkage. Heating oil and diesel are the same distillate; treating them as unrelated misses the shared driver.
- Over-reading single-day moves. Daily spot is volatile; the informative unit is the multi-day trend, not one print.
- Assuming crude explains it. Distillate inventories and Northeast winter demand drive divergences from WTI/Brent.
Historical Regimes
1986–1999 — Cheap distillate. Prices spent the era near $0.40–$0.70, bottoming at $0.284 in February 1999.
2000–2008 — The oil supercycle. A steady climb to nearly $4 by mid-2008 on global demand.
2009–2014 — High and volatile. Range-bound in the $2.50–$3.50 zone through the shale transition.
2015–2020 — Glut and crash. Falling distillate prices, with the 2020 demand collapse cutting spot sharply.
2021–2026 — Distillate crunch. Tight inventories drove the all-time high of $5.152 (May 2022), normalizing to $3.22 by mid-2026.
Related Macroeconomic Datasets
- NY Harbor ULSD Spot Price — the ultra-low-sulfur distillate on the same hub
- US Diesel Retail Price — the retail-side distillate that competes for output
- WTI Crude Oil Price — the crude benchmark upstream of distillate
- Natural Gas Price — Henry Hub — the competing heating fuel
Macroeconomic Dataset Hub
This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.
Explore the Eco3min Commodity Data Hub
Sources
- U.S. Energy Information Administration — Petroleum & Other Liquids Spot Prices (series EER_EPD2F_PF4_Y35NY_DPG)
Dataset Reference
Last updated — 4 August 2026
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