Propane Price History by Winter, 1990-91 to 2025-26

US households paid an average $2.55 a gallon for residential propane over the 2025-26 heating season, which is $2.63 in September 2026 dollars and the 21st highest of the 36 winters the EIA has measured since 1990-91. The most expensive winter in real terms was 2013-14, at $4.18 a gallon, and propane has been the cheaper fuel than heating oil per unit of heat in only 4 of 36 winters.

The level matters less than the structure. Since the winter of 2008-09 the Mont Belvieu price, scaled to a barrel, has been worth between 36% and 64% of WTI, against at least 66% before it, and the gap between wholesale and the tank grew from $0.59 a gallon in 1992-93 to $1.91 in 2025-26. In one week of January 2014 the Midwest price rose by two-thirds.

Thirty-six winters in one table

The EIA collects the residential propane price every week from October through March, as a cash price per gallon excluding taxes. Averaging the weekly readings for each season gives one number per winter, and the table below presents each with its inflation-adjusted equivalent. Real values use the CPI-U annual averages for the two calendar years each winter straddles, with the 2025-26 winter using the mean of the first nine monthly 2026 values (332.2), and a September 2026 base of 336.94.

Three eras are visible. From 1990-91 to 1998-99 the nominal price sat between $0.87 and $1.19, a decade of price stability that left the real price near $1.80 in 1998-99, the lowest in the table. Between 1999 and 2012 the price rose in steps with crude oil, and the seven winters from 2005-06 to 2011-12 averaged between $1.98 and $2.69. Since the 2013-14 spike the nominal price has stayed between $1.96 and $2.77, which means the real price has drifted down from $4.18 to $2.63. Even so, the 2025-26 winter still ranks 21st of 36 in real terms, so propane is neither historically cheap nor historically dear.

The five dearest and cheapest winters

The dearest five are 2013-14, 2011-12, 2007-08, 2010-11 and 2008-09, winters in which WTI averaged anywhere from $50.63 to $98.45 a barrel, so a high propane price has not required $90 crude. The five cheapest all fall between 1993-94 and 1998-99, the years before the 2000s climb.

How the series is built, and where it stops

The residential price is a survey, collected from propane retailers and published as a weekly state, regional and national average of the cash price per gallon excluding taxes. From April through September the EIA collects one price a month, on the second Monday, and does not publish monthly averages for that period; the winter tables here therefore stop at March. Prices from October 2009 to March 2013 were revised by the EIA when it changed the weights, so comparisons across that boundary carry that revision. Real values use calendar-year CPI averages, not the monthly CPI of each week. The Mont Belvieu series is a spot price for propane at a Texas storage hub, a wholesale benchmark that no household pays. And a winter average is not a bill: the amount a household pays depends on its tank size, the date of each fill, whether it is on a contract (the contract mechanics are in the heating oil prices guide for oil, and differ for propane), and the weather.

One week in January 2014

The highest weekly price in the series, $4.01, was recorded on January 27, 2014, and it arrived as a jump: the national average rose $1.05 in a single week, nearly 5 times the next largest weekly rise in the series ($0.218, March 3, 2003). A seasonal average hides an event like that, so it is worth reading week by week.

From January 20 to 27 the Midwest retail price rose 65%, the U.S. average 35%, and the Mont Belvieu spot price 16%. The Midwest peaked on the week of January 27, 2014 at $4.195 and then fell back to $2.479 by March 17, 2014, still above its December level. New England peaked later and lower: $3.964 on March 3, 2014, and was at $3.910 by March 17, 2014. The wholesale column moved only a fraction as far as either retail column. The EIA's own account, published on January 23, 2014, explains why the Midwest was different: crop-drying demand drew down inventories in November after a late harvest, the Cochin pipeline from Canada was out of service from late November to December 20, rail deliveries were disrupted, and Midwest inventories had fallen 12.8 million barrels since October 11 against a 7.3 million barrel five-year average draw. By January 21 propane at Conway, Kansas, stood 95 cents a gallon above Mont Belvieu. A national benchmark cannot register a regional shortage of that kind, and the retail column shows it.

Propane has stopped following crude

Through the winter of 2007-08 a barrel of propane at Mont Belvieu sold for between two-thirds and nine-tenths of the price of a barrel of crude oil. Dividing the propane price by 42 gallons a barrel and comparing it with WTI shows how completely that link has loosened.

Propane was worth 90% of WTI in 2000-01, the high in the table, and no winter through 2007-08 came in below 66%. Since 2008-09 no winter has exceeded 64%, and the low is 36% in 2019-20; the 2012-13 winter fell to 40%. In September 2026, with Mont Belvieu at $0.848 and WTI at $97.31, the monthly ratio was 37%, between the post-2007 low of 36% and its high. A likely reason, developed in the propane prices guide, is where US propane comes from: much of it is separated from natural gas, so its supply grew with shale gas while crude oil is priced on a different market. The ratio is the measurable footprint of that; the table does not test the explanation.

The distance between wholesale and the tank

The same table carries the other structural change, in the gap column. In 1992-93 the retail price exceeded the Mont Belvieu spot by $0.59, or 64% of the retail price. By 2025-26 the gap was $1.91, 75% of what the household paid. Nearly three-quarters of the retail price of propane in recent winters is not the molecule at the hub but delivery, storage, margin and everything that sits between the hub and the tank.

The gap also has a season. Averaging the 10 winters from 2015-16 to 2024-25 by month shows the difference between the national residential price and Mont Belvieu rising as the cold sets in:

The gap rises from $1.49 in October to $1.69 in March, while the Mont Belvieu column moves in a band of only $0.091. Retail propane climbs through the winter while the wholesale price barely changes, which is consistent with delivery demand peaking when the weather is coldest, as the tank guide shows for a typical house. The EIA series cannot separate dealer costs from dealer margin in that rise.

When wholesale falls, how far does retail follow?

The gap in Table 4 is not a constant. Comparing each winter with the one before gives 33 pairs of consecutive seasons with a wholesale price: 19 in which the Mont Belvieu average rose and 14 in which it fell. For each, the table below sets the change at the hub beside the change at the tank.

The pattern is lopsided. In the four largest wholesale increases, retail rose between -2% and 34%. In the six largest falls, retail fell between 3% and 22% even though the hub dropped by 35% to 50%. Fitting a straight line through the origin to each set of moves gives a response of about 0.98 dollars of retail change per dollar of wholesale increase and 0.60 per dollar of decrease. That is a description of 33 pairs of winter averages with no control for anything else, and one large outlier winter moves it, so treat the size as an indication, not an estimate. The direction is the useful part, and it echoes the "rockets and feathers" pattern the gasoline guide measures for pump prices: increases reach the tank faster and more fully than decreases do.

Three regions, three price levels

A national average is a weighted blend of regions that have diverged. The EIA publishes New England (PADD 1A) and the Midwest (PADD 2) back to 1990 and the Gulf Coast (PADD 3) since 2014, so the three can be compared for the last twelve winters.

New England has been the most expensive of the three in every winter of the table, and the gap with the Midwest has widened: from $1.18 in 2014-15 to $1.50 in 2025-26, a rise of 27%. The Gulf Coast, closest to the production plants, sits between the two. Distance matters for a fuel moved mostly by rail, truck and pipeline from the Gulf, and the PADD districts guide explains the regions. A household in Maine and one in Iowa are therefore buying different price histories under one national headline.

Propane against heating oil, on one scale

Many households choose or could choose between propane and heating oil, and the two sell by different units: a gallon of propane carries about 91,452 Btu, a gallon of heating oil 138,500. Dividing each winter average by its heat content puts both on a dollars-per-million-Btu scale. Because the heating oil series is the one used in the heating oil price history, the comparison here shows only the ratio, not that page's tables again.

Propane was the cheaper fuel per unit of heat in 4 winters: 2012-13, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2025-26. For the first 22 winters it was never cheaper, and the multiple ranged from 1.04 to 1.58 times heating oil. Each of those four winters is among the five with the highest heating oil price in the table (2022-23, 2023-24, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2025-26), so propane won when oil was dear, not because propane was cheap. The comparison covers only fuel prices; appliance efficiency, which the heating fuel cost guide adjusts for, can reverse a small gap either way.

Where October 2026 sits

The three readings so far in the 2026-27 season are $2.586, $2.633, $2.689, a mean of $2.636. That is $0.211 above the same three weeks of 2025-26 ($2.425). An October start is a poor guide to the season: in 32 of 36 winters the first three October readings were below the October-to-March average, so the winter ahead has usually cost more than its first weeks. With crude oil at $97.31 in September and propane at 37% of it, the wholesale ratio is within its post-2007 range. Whether the gap to the tank widens through the winter, as Table 5 shows it usually does, is the part this season will decide.

Data and sources: EIA, Heating Oil and Propane Update and Weekly Heating Oil and Propane Prices (residential propane W_EPLLPA_PRS_NUS_DPG and PADD series; residential heating oil W_EPD2F_PRS_NUS_DPG), release of October 21, 2026, from the EIA petroleum bulk data file updated October 22, 2026, checked October 23, 2026. EIA spot prices: Mont Belvieu, TX propane FOB (EER_EPLLPA_PF4_Y44MB_DPG) and WTI Cushing (RWTC), checked October 23, 2026. EIA, British thermal units (propane 91,452 Btu per gallon, heating oil 138,500), checked October 23, 2026. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U (CUUR0000SA0), annual averages as used in the gasoline price history guide on this site; a direct download of the monthly series was blocked on October 23, 2026, so each winter is deflated with the mean of its two calendar years' annual averages (2026 is the mean of January to September, 332.2) to a September 2026 base of 336.94. Gaps, ratios, rankings and per-Btu conversions are this page's arithmetic.