The start of the week is rarely this stressful for Manuel Weiss. “Yesterday was hell,” he says heating oil-Supplier from Worms in conversation with FOCUS online on Tuesday. From 5 a.m. onwards his phone didn’t stop working. Weiss counted well over 100 calls when he locked the office around 11 p.m.; Normally there are 30 to 40. Added to this are the emails and cell phone calls that he had already received over the weekend.

The attack by Israel and the USA on Iran since the weekend it’s been hitting energy prices already fully in. “We were surprised ourselves,” says Weiss about the geopolitical developments that are suddenly once again affecting his everyday work. He already had a premonition. Only: “We didn’t know when it would start and we wouldn’t have imagined the extent of it.”

Oil prices are skyrocketing because of the Iran war – suppliers are under stress

Many customers had hoped that the suppliers would be able to react to the impending disaster on Friday and offer even cheaper prices on Monday. “But we are tied to the stock exchange, that only happened on Monday,” says Weiss. Prices then only knew one direction: upwards. According to the comparison portal “Heizoel24”, 100 liters were still available for 97.43 euros on Friday. By Monday the price shot up to 118.48 euros and by Tuesday lunchtime it had risen to 127.18 euros. Regionally, the 130 euro mark has even been broken.

In particular, customers who still need supplies until summer prefer to buy again now – before prices possibly rise even further. “Yesterday many people stocked up who wanted a certain price. They were panicking about a liter price of 1.50 euros,” says the supplier. Some older customers even want to fill up the tank now of all times – so they can sleep peacefully.

There is a simple reason why the dealer does not have more heating oil stocks in stock. “If the price falls, we have bought expensive oil,” he says. Especially since the attack fell on a Saturday – he could still have reacted on Friday afternoon.

In Bremen, heating oil supplier Jan Reiner also speaks of significant demand. “That was extreme,” he says about the start of the week. Some customers would rather stock up now, even if it is not absolutely necessary due to the end of winter. The company owner even sees a comparatively comfortable situation: “We are coming out of the heating season and not in it. In November that would be even more precarious,” he says. Finally, the sun is increasingly coming out and there is no sign of another cold spell.

Heating oil: Parallels to Russia’s Ukraine attack

For many heating oil customers, this means that they do not have to urgently refill the tanks. “Stay calm in the situation and wait,” recommends the expert. The prices could initially rise further. A look at the historical trends shows that the peak value in 2022 was only reached around two weeks after the major Russian attack on Ukraine. But then the prices quickly fell again. Despite strong fluctuations, no new record was achieved. “You just have to hope for it,” says the dealer.

The two suppliers recommend that heating oil customers now only purchase small quantities when they actually need it. Over the course of the year, they expect prices to fall again and customers to be able to stock up for the upcoming winter more cost-effectively; although this cannot be predicted with certainty. But their assessment is based on decades of experience with numerous crises and market upheavals. Traders hope that the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will end quickly so that prices will flatten out again.

Whether heating oil, gas or fuel – there is a great deal of dependency on fossil fuels, and prices depend on global political developments, says the Worms supplier Weiss. “I don’t make any more profit, the margin stays the same,” he notes: “I would prefer a price of 80 cents per liter. Then people would have their tanks full and I would be able to travel comfortably all year round.”

For him as an entrepreneur it is also noticeable whether he has to fill up the oil truck for 600 or 900 euros per week. Weiss hopes that at least the peaks from 2022 will not be reached again. He remembers prices of up to 2.10 euros per liter for heating oil: “That made me feel sick,” he says.