Chicago Heating Bills This Winter: Gas, Oil And El Niño

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Heating oil costs 59 percent more than it did a year ago, but about one Chicago home in 1,400 heats with fuel oil or kerosene. Gas heats 78 percent of the city’s households, and for gas-heated homes in the Midwest the federal forecast is a winter bill about 10 percent smaller than last winter’s. Most of the bill won’t follow the gas price down, because most of it isn’t the gas: by EIA’s prices, the gas itself was 37 cents of every dollar Illinois homes paid for natural gas in 2025, down from 77 cents in 2006. Peoples Gas’s request to raise that part of the bill is still pending before state regulators, who were slated, by a consumer group’s account, to rule in November.

EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, November 10, 2026 · EIA natural gas prices for Illinois, 2001–2025 · Census Bureau, 2025 American Community Survey · NOAA’s daily record at O’Hare · the comparisons are ours

Will the heating oil spike reach Chicago?

Barely, because Chicago doesn’t heat with oil. The Census Bureau’s 2025 survey counts about 840 Chicago households heating with fuel oil or kerosene, give or take about 500, out of 1.18 million: about one home in 1,400, or about one in 900 at the upper end of the survey’s published margin of error. Across the country the share is 3.4 percent, about 4.5 million homes, and that is where a 59 percent jump lands. The Energy Information Administration’s average residential price for heating oil was $5.92 a gallon in the week of November 9, against $3.72 a year earlier. Its forecast has oil-heated homes spending $2,179 this winter, up 25 percent.

The same federal report explains why the spike stops at oil. EIA expects crude to stay near $100 a barrel for the rest of the year, citing falling inventories, attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and constrained shipping, and it points to damage to refineries in the Middle East and Russia that has cut the supply of refined products such as heating oil. Natural gas in the U.S. is a different market. Overseas, gas prices have climbed to their highest since December 2022, after the conflict between the United States and Iran that began February 28. The U.S. benchmark, the Henry Hub price, is going the other way: EIA expects it to average $2.87 per million Btu from November through March, 36 percent below last winter, after a warm start to November and with production still growing. So does a war overseas raise a Chicago heating bill? Through oil, hardly at all; through gas, EIA’s forecast points the other way.

What is the average gas bill in winter?

In Illinois last winter, about $766 for the five months from November through March, or roughly $153 a month. That is our division of what EIA reports Illinois homes paid for natural gas over those months by the number of residential gas customers in the state (4.0 million, EIA’s latest count, for 2024). The same arithmetic gives $667 for 2024–25, $621 for the mild winter of 2023–24 and $854 for 2022–23, when gas prices were high. It is a statewide average, with Nicor Gas, Ameren and the smaller utilities in it alongside Peoples Gas, and every household’s bill depends on its building and its thermostat.

For this winter, EIA’s forecast for the average gas-heated home in the Midwest is $615, against $680 last winter: 10 percent less, from a price about 6 percent lower and about 4 percent less gas burned in a milder winter. EIA also runs a warmer and a colder case. The warmer one comes to $601; the colder one to $649, which is still below last winter. Homes that heat with electricity, about 18 percent of Chicago’s, go the other way, up 1.9 percent to $1,363 in the Midwest, because the price of electricity keeps rising. Our Illinois electricity prices page has that side of the story.

Average spending for November through March by a household’s main heating fuel, from EIA’s Winter Fuels Outlook as updated November 10, 2026. Electricity includes the home’s other uses.
Heating fuel	Last winter, 2025–26	Forecast, 2026–27	Change
Natural gas, Midwest home	$680	$615	−9.6%
Natural gas, Midwest, colder case	$680	$649	−4.6%
Electricity, Midwest home	$1,337	$1,363	+1.9%
Heating oil, U.S. average home	$1,748	$2,179	+24.6%

Why is my gas bill so high?

Because most of it isn’t gas anymore. EIA publishes two prices for Illinois each month: what homes paid per thousand cubic feet of gas, everything included, and the citygate price, what the gas cost when it reached the local utility’s system. The gap between them is the nearest public measure of what delivery costs: the pipes, the meters, the service, the taxes and the utility’s other charges. It isn’t a line-by-line accounting of a bill, since it also absorbs differences in timing and storage between the two prices, and in what follows “delivery” means that gap. In 2006 the gas was 77 percent of what Illinois homes paid. In 2025 it was 37 percent.

What an Illinois home paid per unit of gas, and what it bought EIA’s monthly Illinois residential and citygate prices, each year’s months weighted by residential gas use. Delivery is the residential price minus the citygate price.

Per unit, Illinois homes paid almost exactly the same in 2025 as in 2006, $11.20 per thousand cubic feet against $11.17. What changed is what the money bought. The gas fell from $8.60 to $4.19; delivery rose from $2.56 to $7.01. Counting inflation, 2006’s delivery cost would be $4.09 in 2025 dollars, so after inflation delivery costs about 71 percent more per unit than it did in 2006, and the gas about 69 percent less. In the heating months the gas weighs more, because use is high; last winter it was 45 percent of what Illinois homes paid from November through March.

So why does EIA expect a 36 percent drop in the wholesale price but a residential price only about 6 percent lower? The forecast doesn’t break that down. Our reading: much of the answer is the split above, since a cheaper wholesale price can only move the part of the bill that is gas, and that part is under half; the gas charges utilities post also pass through what they paid earlier, so a drop arrives late and in part. Our broader reading: for most of the last two decades the Illinois gas bill has been driven less by the gas market than by the cost of the system that delivers it, which is set in rate cases before the Illinois Commerce Commission. The price series shows the shift; it can’t say which pipes, programs or line items account for it.

Will El Niño make this a mild winter in Chicago?

The odds lean that way, and O’Hare’s record leans the same way. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said on November 12 that El Niño continues to strengthen and that a strong-to-very strong event is likely through January–March 2027, with better than a 79 percent chance. It put the chance of an event stronger than any since 1950 at about 60 percent. NOAA’s winter outlook favors above-average temperatures across the northern United States from December through February, and EIA’s forecast, built with NOAA’s data, has 4.5 percent fewer heating degree days in the Midwest than last winter.

We checked that against 68 winters at O’Hare, measured in heating degree days, the standard yardstick for how much heat a winter calls for. Seven of them, from 1965–66 to 2023–24, came in strong El Niño years by at least one of NOAA’s two indexes. Every one of the seven needed less heat than the average winter. Together they averaged 4,646 heating degree days, 9 percent below the long-run 5,099, and two of them, 2023–24 and 2015–16, rank second and third among the mildest winters on file. December through February averaged 30.5°F in those winters against 26.0°F in all of them. The six with a full snow record brought a median 27.5 inches, and none more than 31.2, against a typical 35 for all winters.

How much heat each Chicago winter called for, O’Hare Heating degree days add up, day by day, how far the day’s average temperature fell below 65°F. Strong El Niño winters: a December–February value of +1.5 or more on NOAA’s ONI or relative ONI.

Does that make a mild winter certain? No. The closest call, 1965–66, needed 5,053 heating degree days, within 1 percent of average. And measured at O’Hare, last winter was already milder than average, at 4,744; a winter that matched the strong El Niño average would need only about 2 percent less heat than that. Our reading: the history points to a milder, less snowy winter, the one EIA’s forecast already counts on, but it can’t say what a record El Niño does, because O’Hare’s daily record, which starts in 1958, has never seen one. The full winter record is on our Chicago snowfall totals page.

What is the Peoples Gas rate increase?

It is a request to raise what Peoples Gas charges to deliver gas, not what it charges for the gas, and it is still pending. Peoples Gas, which serves the city, filed in January for a $202 million increase in its delivery rates, which it estimated would add $10 to $11 a month for a typical home. In July it cut the request to $144 million, $7 to $8 a month by its estimate. The case is before the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) as docket 26-0065, consolidated with North Shore Gas’s 26-0066. A proposed order from the administrative law judges hearing it would allow $66.2 million, 54 percent less than the request, according to the Citizens Utility Board, a party to the case, which reported in October that the ICC was slated to rule in November. When it filed, Peoples Gas said new rates would take effect in 2027.

How big is that next to the forecast? EIA’s Midwest figure falls by about $65 over the five winter months, roughly $13 a month. Peoples Gas’s own estimate for its full request would take back more than half of that for every month the new rates apply. If the bill effect shrank in step with the dollars, which the ICC’s rate design need not do, the judges’ $66.2 million would come to roughly $3 to $4 a month. That is our arithmetic, not anyone’s estimate. Our reading: for a Chicago home on gas, the ICC’s decision is the largest open question in this winter’s bill apart from the weather.

What a Peoples Gas bill is made of

Peoples Gas posts its charges. For a home that heats with gas, delivery is $25.81 a month plus 46.583 cents a therm, storage adds 8.257 cents a therm, and the gas charge for November is 35.18 cents a therm. In a month that uses 100 therms, the gas is about 30 percent of the $115.83 those posted charges come to, before the charges the state sets, the other adjustments and the taxes, which the posted rates leave out. As an illustration, then, one month on the posted November rates tilts toward delivery the way the statewide figures in the chart above do; one month of arithmetic can’t show how a Chicago bill splits over a year.

Our arithmetic on the rates Peoples Gas posts for residential heating service (Rate 1), as read November 14, 2026. 100 therms is a round number for illustration, not a typical bill.
Posted charge, Peoples Gas heating customer	In a 100-therm November month
Customer charge	$25.81
Distribution, 46.583 cents a therm	$46.58
Storage service, 8.257 cents a therm	$8.26
Gas charge for November, 35.18 cents a therm	$35.18
Total, before state charges, adjustments and taxes	$115.83

And the gas charge itself is up, not down: 35.18 cents a therm this November against 34.46 a year ago, about 2 percent higher. Last winter it ran from 34.46 cents in November to a high of 41.81 in January. Nicor Gas, which serves most of the suburbs, posts 31 cents for November against 39 a year ago, about 21 percent lower. Why would the same market give one utility’s customers a cheaper November and the other’s a slightly dearer one? Each says its gas charge passes through what it actually paid for gas, without markup. Our reading: gas bought and stored before winter, at earlier prices, is the likeliest reason a falling market reaches different bills at different speeds; the posted charges can’t show the purchases behind them.

One thing is lower on November bills for certain: a credit of $56.18, split about evenly across two lines, with about $42 more in 2027 and again in 2028, $125 million in all. It comes from two settlements the ICC approved in May. One closes the reviews of the surcharge Peoples Gas collected from 2017 to 2023 for its pipe replacement program, pays $75 million of the credits and takes $130 million out of its delivery rates. The other reconciles the uncollectible expense adjustment, the charge that covers unpaid bills, and shows on bills as the “UEA Settlement Adjustment.”

How do I apply for LIHEAP in Illinois?

Through the state’s program, which opened to every income-eligible household on November 1 and stays open through August 13, 2027, or until the money runs out. Older adults, people with disabilities, families with children five or younger and households that have been disconnected, hold a disconnection notice or are low on propane could apply from October 1. In Chicago, as in suburban Cook County, applications go through CEDA, the Community and Economic Development Association. The state also takes applications on the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s site and answers questions at 1-833-711-0374, in 30 languages.

Who qualifies? The governor’s office puts the general limit at twice the federal poverty level. For customers of Peoples Gas, Nicor Gas, North Shore Gas, ComEd and Ameren, the department’s limit is higher, 300 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, counted over the 30 days before applying: $3,990 for one person and $8,250 for a family of four. Renters whose heat is included in the rent can qualify.

Much of the money is federal, and it is moving on a stopgap. On October 9 the federal government released $3.63 billion for the program nationally, 90 percent of what the continuing resolution Congress passed for 2027 makes available; Illinois’s share of that release is $174.7 million. The state says its program has $240 million to spend this year. Last season it helped 360,500 households, an average of $676 each. For scale, that is about 88 percent of the $766 the average Illinois gas customer paid from November through March last winter, by our count.

Can the gas be shut off in winter?

Illinois law limits it. From December 1 through March 31, a gas or electric utility can’t disconnect a home that relies on its service for heat over an unpaid bill unless, among other conditions, it has offered a payment plan of at least four months, with a down payment of no more than 10 percent, and the customer has refused or failed to enter it. Over those same months it can’t disconnect a customer enrolled under the state’s Energy Assistance Act at all. And on any day of the year, a utility can’t disconnect a home that heats only with gas or electricity when the National Weather Service forecast for the next 24 hours is 32°F or below, or before a weekend or holiday with such a forecast. The full conditions are in the Public Utilities Act, sections 8-205 and 8-206; the Illinois Commerce Commission’s consumer line is 1-800-524-0795.

What these records can’t tell you

On the recordHow Chicago households heat, from the Census Bureau’s 2025 survey, with its margins.
On the recordWhat Illinois homes paid per unit of natural gas each month, and what the gas cost the utilities, as EIA publishes them through August 2026.
On the recordEIA’s November 10, 2026 forecast for Midwest heating bills, and how much heat 68 winters called for at O’Hare.
Not establishedYour bill. A statewide average and a regional forecast describe many homes; a single bill depends on the building, the thermostat and the utility.
Not establishedPeoples Gas’s split between gas and delivery across a year of its customers’ bills. EIA’s prices are for Illinois as a whole, and the sample bill above is arithmetic on posted rates.
Not establishedThe ICC’s ruling on the Peoples Gas rate case, which had not been issued when this was written.
Not establishedHow this winter turns out. A forecast and a long record set the odds, not the weather.
Not establishedWhy delivery costs rose. The prices show the shift; the reasons are argued, line by line, in rate cases.

How we counted

Heating fuel. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2025 one-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), for Chicago, Cook County, Illinois and the United States. Counts are survey estimates with the margins of error the Bureau publishes.
Gas and delivery. EIA’s monthly Illinois price of natural gas delivered to residential consumers and its Illinois citygate price, in dollars per thousand cubic feet, 2001 to 2025. Each year’s average weights the months by EIA’s Illinois residential deliveries, so the heating months count most. Delivery is the residential price minus the citygate price, and so includes taxes and every utility charge. Inflation uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index for all urban consumers, annual averages for 2006 and 2025.
Average winter bill. EIA’s residential prices times residential deliveries in Illinois, November through March, divided by EIA’s count of residential gas customers in the state (the latest count is for 2024). This is our calculation, not a figure EIA publishes.
Forecast. EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, November 10, 2026, Winter Fuels table WF01: average November-through-March consumption, price and spending by main heating fuel and region, with its warmer and colder cases; and the report’s text on Henry Hub prices and refined products. Heating oil’s weekly price is EIA’s U.S. residential No. 2 series.
Utility rates, the rate case, aid and the law. Read November 14, 2026, from the primary documents: Peoples Gas’s posted gas rates; Peoples Gas’s history of gas charges; Nicor Gas’s rates and costs; Peoples Gas on the November credit; the ICC’s release on the settlements; Peoples Gas on its January filing; Peoples Gas on its revised request; the ICC’s notice naming docket 26-0065/26-0066; the Citizens Utility Board on the proposed order; the governor’s LIHEAP release; the state’s LIHEAP application and income page; the state’s page naming CEDA for Chicago; the federal LIHEAP funding release; the federal table of state shares; 220 ILCS 5/8-205; 220 ILCS 5/8-206.
El Niño and the weather. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center ENSO diagnostic discussion of November 12, 2026, and its Oceanic Niño Index and relative Oceanic Niño Index; a strong winter is a December–February value of +1.5 or more on either. Heating degree days come from NOAA’s daily high and low at O’Hare (station USW00094846), November through March, base 65°F, for the 68 winters from 1958–59 to 2025–26. Every day of every one of those winters has both readings, so no day is estimated.

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Computed by KCM Desk from EIA, Census Bureau, NOAA and Illinois Commerce Commission records, read November 14, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.