What the outlook, the forecast ranges, the volatility reading and the buy or wait signal are made from, and what they are not
We want to give you the most useful view of the heating oil market we can. A big part of that is being open about how we reach our conclusions, so you can judge for yourself how much weight to give them. This page explains it in plain English.
The outlook is information to help you understand the market, not a prediction of what you will pay. Not financial advice. Prices can rise or fall. Not a guarantee of future prices.
Every morning PriceTank compares today's UK heating oil price with historical data. It looks for months in more than thirty five years of official price history where the market had just moved in a similar way, and it checks what happened one, three and six months after those moments. That history, combined with a reading of the pressures acting on the market today, gives the outlook you see on the homepage: a direction for each horizon, a forecast range, a note on how volatile the market currently is, and a simple buy or wait signal for your own tank.
The directions, ranges and the buy or wait signal come from fixed methods. The written commentary is produced with the help of an artificial intelligence model. We try not to make anything sound more certain than the evidence allows: where the history gives a clear answer we say so, and where it does not, the card says Uncertain and the range shows how wide the spread of outcomes really was.
All of the outlook is anchored to one number: PriceTank's UK national reference price for a standard 1,000 litre delivery of kerosene, quoted per litre excluding VAT (value added tax). It is calculated each day from the pricing evidence PriceTank collects from suppliers and benchmark sources across the country. Where we show an inc VAT figure it is the ex VAT price plus 5%, the rate that applies to domestic heating oil.
The reference price is a market benchmark. It is not a quote from any supplier, not the price for your postcode, and not a price you can buy at. Prices for an actual delivery vary with where you live, how much you order, access for the tanker and the supplier's own position on the day. Use the quote tool for prices in your area.
The outlook covers one month, three months and six months ahead. Each horizon gets its own direction and its own range because the evidence for each is different: what tends to follow a sharp rise over the next month is not the same as what tends to follow it over the next half year.
The historical evidence comes from the monthly average heating oil prices published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which run back to the late 1980s and give more than four hundred month to month price changes to draw on.
Each morning we measure the current move: today's reference price compared with the average price over the previous calendar month. That is measured the same way the official history is, month against month, so the two can be compared fairly. We then find the 24 past months in which the market had just moved in the same direction by the most similar amount. To stop one long market episode being counted many times over, the chosen months are spaced out so their forward windows do not overlap.
For each of those 24 comparable months we look at where the price was one, three and six months later. That gives 24 historical outcomes for each horizon. Everything in the next three sections is derived from them.
Two pieces of evidence feed the direction, and they are kept deliberately separate.
The historical lean. If at least 55% of the comparable periods went on to rise and the typical outcome was a rise, the history leans upward. If at least 55% fell and the typical outcome was a fall, it leans downward. Otherwise the history is balanced. Each card shows the count this came from, for example "14 of the 24 most comparable past periods ended higher a month on", so you can see how strong the lean is rather than take the label on trust.
Current external pressure. Separately, the pressures acting on the market today are classified as upward, balanced or downward for each horizon, using the Brent crude oil price and its recent movement, the pound against the dollar and its recent movement, and a small set of current energy market headlines. This classification is made with the help of an artificial intelligence model, working only from that public information; section 7 says more about what the model is and is not used for.
The published direction is then set by a fixed rule:
Uncertain is an honest answer, not a gap. It means the evidence does not point clearly one way, and the range beside it shows how far apart the possible outcomes are. The pressure classification never sets a direction on its own: it can confirm a lean the history already shows, or turn it into Uncertain, but it cannot create a Rising or Falling label by itself.
The forecast range is the middle half of the historical outcomes, applied to today's price. Half of the comparable periods ended inside it, a quarter ended above it and a quarter ended below it. It is always shown.
It is not a guaranteed high and low, not a statistical confidence interval, not a figure produced by an artificial intelligence model, and not a supplier quote. It is a plain description of what happened after similar moves in the past.
Longer horizons naturally have wider ranges, and a sharp recent move produces a wider spread of outcomes than a calm one. When a range is wider than is usual for its horizon (more than 15% of the current price at one month, 20% at three months, 25% at six months) the card says so underneath the range rather than hiding it. A wide range is itself useful information: it tells you the market is harder to read than normal.
The volatility line at the top of the outlook says how unusual the current move is. We take the size of the current move, ignoring its direction, and rank it against every month to month change in the official history. A percentile is simply a way of ranking something against everything that came before it: if today's move is at the 90th percentile, it is bigger than 90% of all the month to month moves on record. The bands are:
| Band | Where the current move ranks | What it means for the outlook |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | Below the 75th percentile | Price movements are within their usual range. Forecast ranges are more dependable. |
| Elevated | 75th to 85th percentile | Prices are moving more than usual. Read the ranges with more caution. |
| High | 85th to 95th percentile | Prices are moving far more than usual. Ranges tend to be wider and less reliable. |
| Extreme | 95th percentile and above | Among the largest moves on record. The outlook can be overtaken by events at short notice. |
Volatility is context. It does not change the direction, does not widen the ranges by itself and is not turned into a confidence score. We show it because our own review of past forecasts found that the periods where they went most wrong were the volatile ones, and you should know when you are in one.
The Market Brief is a short written summary of what is moving the market that day, and each card carries a short paragraph explaining its outlook. Both are produced each morning with the help of an artificial intelligence model, working from the day's price data, the Brent crude price and current energy headlines. They are automated commentary rather than analysis by a person, and they are checked against fixed rules before they appear.
The model writes; it does not decide. The direction on each card, the forecast range, the volatility reading and the buy now or wait signal all come from the fixed methods described on this page, and the model is not allowed to change them or to add a price, a probability or a recommendation of its own. The buy now or wait label on the brief comes from the same rule as the timing signal in section 8. Nothing you enter into the buy or wait tool is ever sent to the model.
The "Should I buy now or wait?" tool combines your estimated supply with the one month outlook. It follows a fixed rule and nothing else:
Your remaining supply is estimated as tank capacity multiplied by the tank level you enter, and the days remaining as that figure divided by your daily usage. Choosing a house size only fills in a typical usage figure, which you can change; it is not treated as a tank size. If you choose "I don't know" for capacity, we do not guess: the tool gives you the market signal and says plainly that your remaining supply cannot be estimated.
The signal is based on the national outlook. It is not a prediction for your postcode and we do not ask for one. Your tank figures are used only to work out the answer and are not stored by the tool. We do not show a figure for what you might save by waiting, because future supplier prices are unknown and any such figure would be invented.
Elsewhere on PriceTank, a supplier marked Live price is one for which PriceTank holds recent pricing evidence, refreshed through the day. It is a close indication of what that supplier is currently charging, not a binding quotation, a guarantee of availability or a checkout price. A supplier marked Indicative price is shown from a recent national benchmark because we do not hold that supplier's own current evidence. In both cases, confirm the price with the supplier before you order.
Calculation method v2.4.0. Direction labels daily-1.5.1 (10 September 2026: four labels, 55% lean, Stable only within a 10% range). Buy or wait rule buy-wait-v2. Each day's outlook records the versions of the method and the commentary instructions that produced it.
If anything on this page is unclear, or you think something on the outlook is wrong, tell us at hello@pricetank.co.uk. Not financial advice. Prices can rise or fall. Not a guarantee of future prices.