Maritimers move off oil heating amid ‘volatile’ market

At least one Halifax-area heating and refrigeration specialist says climbing oil prices have been good for business.

Don Skinner, owner of Don’s Refrigeration, has been inundated with calls for the past two weeks as people look to switch to heat pumps at home – blaming soaring oil prices.

“The price of oil right now is definitely driving up the heat pump market,” Skinner says.

He says he’s never seen the price of furnace oil this high.

The retail price averages $1.81 per litre across Halifax this week, according to Natural Resources Canada.

In New Brunswick, that average is $1.83 per litre.

Those numbers have some who rely on furnace oil going to extreme lengths to save cash heating their homes.

“I visited an older chap yesterday, he has hot water baseboard oil and he’s turned it off and bought space heaters because he says he can’t afford the oil,” says Skinner.

“About three months ago he paid $474 to fill his tank and last week he paid $1,110 and he can’t afford it.”

It’s another chapter in the story of sky-high oil prices, blamed in part on tensions in Eastern Europe.

“Before Russia invaded Ukraine, the demand for oil and the supply for oil was balanced,” says Vijay Muralidharan, director of consulting with Kalibrate Technologies.

Muralidharan says things are so up in the air at the moment, it’s too hard to say what oil prices are going to do.

“Crude moves every day. It’s volatile,” he says. “You have to keep an eye on the markets.”

Gas price forecaster Dan McTeague predicts falls in prices at the pumps across Canada come Friday.

On his website, McTeague estimates the price of regular gas in Halifax to drop about 13 cents per litre.

That forecast hasn’t seen business slow at all for Skinner.

“In the past 10 minutes I’ve missed five phone calls,” he says. “I bet three of those are asking about a heat pump.”

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