If you use FEWLR, you probably know us as the app that helps you get a great price on heating oil.
But there’s a lot happening behind the scenes that most homeowners never see.
A few weeks ago, Hunter and Ed from our team spent the day with Dan Rolfe, owner of Clear River Fuel Oil, one of our longtime heating oil partners here in Connecticut. We talked about his business, rode along to see more of the operation firsthand, and went with him to “the rack.” If you’ve never heard of that term before, you’re probably not alone. The rack is the fuel terminal where heating oil dealers go to load their trucks before making deliveries to customers.
And yes, we actually like spending our time doing this!
For us, building FEWLR means understanding the heating oil business beyond what happens on your phone. We want to know what our dealer partners deal with every day, how they buy their fuel, what affects their costs, what slows them down, and what we can do to make FEWLR work better for both them and you. This wasn’t a one-time visit, either. We routinely spend time with the local oil companies on our platform because some of the best things we can learn don’t happen in a conference room.
As Hunter, FEWLR’s president, puts it: “If we’re going to build a better way for people to buy heating oil, we need to understand the business from the rack all the way to the customer’s tank. The more we learn from the people doing this every day, the better we can make FEWLR.”
There’s a lot happening in the heating oil world right now. We also try to stay involved with the industry as a whole. FEWLR is a member of CEMA in Connecticut and EMARI in Rhode Island, and on September 14 and 15 our team was in Newport, RI for the 2026 Southern New England Energy Conference. The conference is heavily focused on industry education, with sessions covering fuel markets, operations, regulations, equipment, and other issues affecting energy companies across the Northeast.
This year, one topic was especially hard to ignore: what could happen with fuel prices and supply this heating season.
There are some legitimate reasons homeowners should be paying attention to what’s going on in the heating oil industry.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported this month that inventories of distillate fuel (which includes heating oil) are low. The EIA specifically noted that low inventories may contribute to higher residential heating oil prices in the Northeast this fall and winter of 2026-2027. Ongoing disruptions to fuel moving out of the Middle East are another part of that picture.
The federal government has also extended a temporary waiver of the Jones Act through November 15th, 2026. In plain English, that gives certain foreign ships more flexibility to move fuel between U.S. ports when qualifying American vessels aren’t available. The idea is to give the fuel supply chain more options during a period of unusually tight energy markets.
Does that mean we know exactly what heating oil will cost this winter? Absolutely not.
There are too many moving pieces, including weather, supply, demand, world events and fuel inventories, for anyone to responsibly guarantee where prices are headed. But it does mean we’re watching closely.
What does all of this mean for you? Mostly, we want FEWLR customers to know that we’re paying attention to the same things our dealers are paying attention to.
We’ll keep talking to suppliers. We’ll keep visiting dealers. We’ll keep going to industry events, asking questions, and learning how this business works from the inside.
And as the heating season develops, we want to share more of what we’re learning with you, in normal language, without expecting you to become an oil-market expert just to heat your house.
When you do need oil, FEWLR will be here for that too. Open the app, press the “Get FEWL’d” button, and let local heating oil companies work to get you a great price on your order.
In the meantime, keep an eye on your tank, follow along with us this heating season, and stay warm.
The FEWLR Team
