On average across the United States, households can expect heating expenditures this winter (October through March) to be lower than last winter’s, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Winter Fuels Outlook, released at noon today. Compared with last winter’s heating bills, EIA expects households that primarily use electricity or natural gas as their heating source to spend very slightly less, households that use heating oil to spend 4% less, and households that use propane to spend 16% less. Only natural gas bills in the South are likely to rise significantly, by about 4%, primarily as a result of higher regional natural gas prices. EIA’s forecast of winter heating expenditures are based on fuel price and consumption forecasts from EIA and weather forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).