Simon Bainbridge, the North East representative for the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), said: “I lot of my neighbours are ringing me up and saying, ‘Have you seen the price of heating oil?'”
“It’s still really cold, this is really worrying for people in rural areas who often live in poorly insulated houses.
“But given a lot of the oil would have been bought before this crisis, I do wonder if there’s a bit of profiteering going on?”
We asked the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association Ltd (UKIFDA) why prices were rising so quickly but they only said the industry had been advised by the UK government “there are no current reported impacts to the UK fuel supply”.
Its statement added there had been a “sharp increase in consumer enquiries about purchasing heating oil”.
“The present period of price volatility makes it more difficult for distributors to predict the cost of fuel they purchase,” they added.