While there are some small pipelines in New England, they move crude oil and petroleum products within the region and into Canada - not from other areas. Most home-heating oil comes by pipeline from Gulf Coast refineries to Linden, NJ, where it is loaded on barges for delivery up the Hudson River, along the Connecticut coast, to Rhode Island and to Massachusetts.
Barges based in Boston and other oil-handling ports also move supplies along the coast.
Also, during stormy weather, high seas and winds prevent tankers that carry oil imports directly to coastal ports from coming safely into port. Indeed, that is what happened last winter. Low inventories or low refinery production did not cause the tight supplies and price hikes. Instead, the extremely cold weather not only increased demand for heating oil, it also froze rivers and harbors and made it extremely difficult for barges to deliver heating oil supplies to parts of the Northeast. The increased demand and weather-related reduced supplies forced up prices.