Evening edition · Tuesday, 20 October 2026
Ordinary Ledger: three prices for one litre of heating oil
The factory-gate index says +91.8%, the consumer index +74.9%, and Tuesday's portal average €1.73 a litre against about 90 cents a year ago. They measure different moments of the same delivery.
On Tuesday the same litre of heating oil appeared in three official or semi-official places, with three different numbers. None is wrong.
At the factory gate. Destatis said light heating oil was 91.8% dearer in September than a year earlier, measured at the producer level on the 15th of the month, excluding VAT1.
In the shop. The consumer-price index for September put heating oil 74.9% above a year earlier, and 18.5% above August2. Consumer prices include taxes and delivery margins that move more slowly than the commodity, which is why the percentage is smaller even though the euros are larger.
At your door, today. HeizOel24 put Tuesday’s national average at €1.73 a litre for a 3,000-litre order, about 2.5 cents up on Monday, and said that a year ago the same litre cost around 90 cents3. It rose in every Land, by between almost two and just over four cents3. Hamburg was cheapest at €1.68, North Rhine-Westphalia dearest at €1.783.
Why it jumped today. Gasoil, the exchange basis for heating oil and diesel, rose faster than crude because diesel is short worldwide3. And the Rhine gauge at Kaub read 21 cm on Tuesday morning, which keeps barge deliveries to the west and south difficult3.
Nothing here is advice to order, wait or switch. The useful habit is to know which of the three numbers you are looking at. Only the written offer for your address is a price.
What to watch
One litre, three thermometers. Use the one with your postcode on it.
Sources
- Erzeugerpreise im September 2026: +6,7 % gegenüber September 2025 — Destatis, 20 Oct 2026.
- Inflationsrate im September 2026 bei +3,3 % — Destatis, Oct 2026.
- Gasöl treibt Heizölpreise nach oben — HeizOel24, 20 Oct 2026, 11:02.
Every figure in this piece traces to a source above or to the desk’s own arithmetic on those sources, marked as such. Quotations are short and attributed. Spot an error? Write to the desk; corrections are logged on the method page.
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