The agency's Winter Fuels Outlook puts the average residential price of heating oil at $5.26 a gallon this winter, up about 34% from $3.94 last winter, News Max reported.
The agency expects average household spending to climb from about $1,745 to about $2,115, with a warmer winter cutting consumption about 9%.
The agency projects natural gas heating bills will fall about 9% nationally and propane spending about 3% and that electricity bills will rise about 4%.
About 5 million households, roughly 3% nationally, rely mainly on oil for heat, according to the agency's data. About 4.1 million of them, or 82%, are in the Northeast.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association said last week that heating oil costs will be about 50% higher than last winter, up from its estimate of 31.3% a few weeks earlier. The association cited disruptions to petroleum markets from the wars in Ukraine and Iran.
The association projects the average cost of heating a home with oil will rise about $878, from about $1,749 last winter to about $2,627.
"A 50 percent increase in heating costs is simply too much for a family living paycheck to paycheck to absorb," Mark Wolfe, the group's executive director, said in a statement.
The association represents the state directors who run the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It has called on Congress to provide $3 billion in supplemental emergency funding for the program.
The administration of President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the heating assistance program's funding in its 2027 budget, as it did for 2026. Congress kept the program running with about $4 billion for fiscal 2026, according to the American Public Power Association, a trade group for community-owned utilities.
Market prices also suggest heating oil could get cheaper as the winter goes on. On Tuesday, heating oil contracts were trading at about $4.60 a gallon for November delivery, compared with about $4.13 for March, a decline of about 10%.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of energy emergency Monday and announced measures expected to provide nearly $150 million in energy bill relief. The measures include expanded heating assistance for middle-class households that rely on heating oil.