I’ve never understood the structural problems or whatever, that have so many in the northeast dependent upon oil heat. Diesel, kerosene and heating oil remain near historic highs. Natural gas is far more cost effective.
Why is that? During what little real estate boom there was here in inland NC, nearly all the older houses with buried tanks for heating oil were retrofitted for natural gas or a heat pump, and the tanks were removed, expensive if there was any evidence of leakage which required soil remediation. Very few houses remain with oil heat.
Running natural gas pipelines in rocky country is expensive if not practically impossible. New England is very rocky.