Heating Oil Prices in Northern Ireland: This Week's Price, the Trend and How to Pay Less

Latest price (Consumer Council weekly survey, 24 September 2026, includes 5% VAT)

900 litres: £996.51 (110.7p a litre) · 500 litres: £561.83 (112.4p a litre) · 300 litres: £346.51 (115.5p a litre)

Change on the week: −£10.65 for 900 litres (−1.1%). Change since 13 August: +£218.36 (+28%).

Checked on 1 October 2026. The Consumer Council publishes a new survey each week.

I started this page on 15 March 2026, ten days after the Consumer Council’s survey showed 900 litres of heating oil in Northern Ireland jump from £537 to £948 in a single week. The 17 September survey brought the biggest one-week rise since that March jump: up £120 to £1,007.16 for 900 litres. I checked again on 1 October 2026, and the 24 September survey had eased by £10.65 to £996.51. That is a pause, not a fall back to the summer price.

Every figure on this page comes from the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, which surveys oil suppliers across all eleven council areas each week. It is the only price series for NI that goes back years and uses the same method every week, so it is the one I use. The live version is on the Consumer Council’s price checker, and the full history is in their weekly archive.

The weekly trend

These are the Consumer Council’s Northern Ireland averages, read from their archive on 1 October 2026.

Survey date	900 litres	500 litres	900L change on the week
2 Jul 2026	£615.23	£346.59	(summer low)
9 Jul 2026	£691.39	£390.83	+£76.16
16 Jul 2026	£789.85	£445.69	+£98.46
23 Jul 2026	£789.07	£445.37	−£0.78
30 Jul 2026	£818.25	£461.24	+£29.18
6 Aug 2026	£787.36	£443.72	−£30.89
13 Aug 2026	£778.15	£440.10	−£9.21
20 Aug 2026	£799.77	£451.30	+£21.62
27 Aug 2026	£793.87	£447.46	−£5.90
3 Sep 2026	£869.13	£491.00	+£75.26
10 Sep 2026	£887.20	£500.40	+£18.07
17 Sep 2026	£1,007.16	£570.40	+£119.96
24 Sep 2026	£996.51	£561.83	−£10.65

August was flat at £778 to £800. The climb started on 3 September and the 17 September survey put 900 litres back above £1,000 for the first time since 16 April. The 24 September survey dipped just under it again.

The longer view

The same series, one reading a month, with a year-ago figure and the 2022 record for scale.

Survey date	900 litres	What was happening
10 Mar 2022	£1,181.53	Highest reading in the archive
25 Sep 2025	£471.88	This time last year
26 Feb 2026	£536.72	Last reading before the 2026 spike
5 Mar 2026	£948.41	Up £411.69 in one week
9 Apr 2026	£1,088.71	2026 peak so far
7 May 2026	£906.70	Falling back
4 Jun 2026	£754.15	Falling back
2 Jul 2026	£615.23	Lowest since the spike
6 Aug 2026	£787.36	Back up after a July rise
3 Sep 2026	£869.13	Climbing again
17 Sep 2026	£1,007.16	Biggest weekly rise since March
24 Sep 2026	£996.51	Latest

Two things stand out. Oil is more than double what it was this time last year (£471.88 on 25 September 2025). And it is still £92.20 below the April 2026 peak and £185.02 below the March 2022 record. It has been higher. That is little comfort if your tank is low this week.

Where you live makes very little difference

On 24 September the cheapest council area for 900 litres was Derry City and Strabane at £992.05, and the dearest was Newry, Mourne and Down at £1,004.57. That is a £12.52 spread across the whole of Northern Ireland. The gap between two suppliers quoting the same postcode on the same day is often bigger than that, which is why the Consumer Council’s main advice is to shop around. It also notes that many suppliers deliver further afield at no extra cost.

Why the price jumped

Heating oil in Northern Ireland is kerosene, and its price follows crude oil. Nothing about NI sets it.

The News Letter’s report of 17 September 2026 set out the September move: crude went from just over $70 a barrel in early July to well over $100, after the US destroyed Iranian oil tankers this month and Iran fired missiles at US ships. Petrol and diesel on NI forecourts rose by 7p to 8p a litre in the same week. The paper also quoted Ulster University economist Esmond Birnie, who suggested the new £100 oil support payment may be adding to demand, and so to prices.

The March 2026 spike came from the same Middle East conflict. The Consumer Council notes that some suppliers cancelled orders as prices surged in the spring, and in August 2026 the Competition and Markets Authority secured compensation for affected customers who had ordered through an intermediary site. If that happened to you, the Consumer Council’s home heating oil page explains what to do.

Why it hits here harder: 61% of Northern Ireland homes heat with oil (NISRA, 2024/25). In most of Great Britain mains gas is the norm, so a crude oil spike is a news story there and a household bill here.

How to pay less for your next fill

None of this changes the market price. It changes what you pay against it. This is the Consumer Council’s own advice, plus what the numbers above show.

Check the price before you ring. The weekly survey tells you whether a quote is fair. The Consumer Council also runs a daily price checker on weekdays. Ring two or three suppliers, including ones outside your town.

Join the oil buying network. The Northern Ireland Oil Buying Network, run by the Housing Executive’s Energy Advice Service, negotiates a price with suppliers for its members every week. It is open to owners and tenants alike. To register, email your first name and postcode to [email protected], text 07823 535 178 or call 0800 111 4455.

Know what the order size costs you. On 24 September, 900 litres worked out at 110.7p a litre, 500 litres at 112.4p and 300 litres at 115.5p. Filling 900 litres saves about £15 against buying the same oil in 500-litre lots. That saving is small next to a £120 weekly swing. If the price has just spiked and you can manage on a smaller order, buying 500 litres and checking again in a few weeks is a reasonable call. If prices have eased and your tank has room, fill it.

Spread the cost. The Northern Ireland Oil Federation’s PayPoint budgeting card lets you pay towards your next delivery from £10 at a time. Several councils run a fuel stamp scheme: you buy £5 stamps at participating shops and some credit unions and use them against an order. The Consumer Council lists Antrim and Newtownabbey, Mid Ulster, Mid and East Antrim, Causeway Coast and Glens, Derry and Strabane, and Belfast.

Avoid 20-litre drums except in a real emergency. Forecourt drums are by far the dearest way to buy oil.

Get the boiler serviced by an OFTEC-registered engineer, and lock the tank. A boiler that burns cleanly uses less oil, and theft rises with the price.

The £100 Home Heating Oil Support Scheme

This is open now. Checked on 23 September 2026 against the Department for Communities and nidirect.

• What you get: a £100 digital card to spend on heating oil, one per household address.
• Dates: opened 9 September 2026, closes 31 March 2027.
• Who qualifies: oil must be your main heating, and you must either get a qualifying income-related or disability benefit (Pension Credit, Universal Credit, income-related ESA, DLA, PIP, Attendance Allowance and some others) or have an income under £30,000 after allowable deductions. Pensioners can qualify on income.
• How to claim: it is not automatic. Apply at nidirect.gov.uk/services/home-heating-oil-support (about ten minutes, you need your National Insurance number) or ring 0800 072 0266, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm.
• Watch the deadline on the card: once you activate it, it has to be spent by the end of the following month. Online orders can be up to £100; for a bigger order, ring the supplier.

At the 24 September price, £100 buys about 90 litres, roughly a tenth of a 900-litre fill. It helps. It does not cover a winter.

Separately, every NI household gets £63 off its electricity bill from 6 October 2026 under the Household Electricity Discount Scheme. That one is automatic. The detail is on our October 2026 price rises page.

If you are on a low income and your house is hard to heat, the Affordable Warmth Scheme pays for insulation and heating upgrades for households under £23,000. Ring NI Energy Advice on 0800 111 4455.

What solar can and cannot do for an oil home

I run a solar quote site, so I will be straight about this, because most solar sites are not.

Solar panels do not heat your house. They make electricity. If oil fires your radiators, solar panels will not touch that part of the bill. What they do is cut your electricity bill, which in NI runs at 32.10p to 34.15p per kWh on Power NI’s domestic tariffs.

A diverter can heat your hot water, but the gain is smaller than you will be told. A diverter sends surplus solar power into the immersion in your cylinder instead of exporting it. In an oil home that saves oil. But every unit you divert is a unit you no longer get paid for exporting, and Power NI pays 11.88p per kWh from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027 (the rate resets each October). With oil at the 17 September price of 111.9p a litre (110.7p a week later) and a boiler at 85% efficiency, a useful kWh of oil heat costs about 12.8p. So each diverted unit is worth roughly 1p net. With oil at the August price of about 86p a litre, it would be worth less than exporting. The full workings, with the sensitivity at different prices, are in solar panels in an oil-heated home, and how diverters work is in our immersion diverter guide.

The thing that actually replaces oil is a heat pump, and whether that pays depends on the oil price more than anything else. At today’s price a heat pump’s running cost comes in below oil; at the summer low it did not. The same guide shows where the crossover sits. Only 37 of the 394 quote requests this site received between March and September 2026 asked about a heat pump, so most oil households looking at solar are not planning to replace the boiler yet.

If you are on oil and will never put panels on the roof, the useful parts of this page are the price table, the buying tips and the £100 card. I update the price box from the Consumer Council’s survey, and the date at the top tells you when I last did.