If you've been following the gyrations of Toronto's stock markets, you'll know that energy companies are not exempt from that old adage, what goes up must come down.

Sometimes with a thud.

The benchmark TSX 300 index took a hammering in early October 2006 as oil prices retreated from record highs.

By Oct. 11, 2006, the price of a barrel of oil had fallen to less than $58. It hadn't been that low in 10 months. Confusion over a declaration by OPEC that its member countries would cut production by a million barrels a day dropped the price through the $58 barrier. Saudi Arabia wasn't on board with the proposed cut – and several other members expressed their doubts as well.

That brought the drop in the price of oil to 25 per cent from the July high of $78 a barrel.

It's a far cry from the situation a year earlier, when a nasty hurricane season left American oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico in a shambles. Soaring oil prices sent the cost of gasoline and home heating oil into record territory.

Last winter, people lined up to buy self-serve furnace oil at Carol Connolly's service station in Milford, outside of Halifax. Filling up your own containers meant a savings of up to 10 cents a litre.

"This is a very big chunk of our business," Connolly told CBC News.

At some service stations in P.E.I., Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, home heating oil has replaced slow-selling premium gasoline at the pumps.

Oil's steady decline over the past year could mean significant savings for Canadian households that heat with oil. On a national average furnace oil prices fell to 74.6 cents a litre in September 2006 from just under 90 cents a litre in September 2005.

Prices do tend to rise as colder winter weather sets in and demand increases. But if Environment Canada's prediction of a milder-than-normal winter across the country becomes reality, the upward pressure on prices may be eased.

For most of the country, it's the same story for natural gas – except the savings may be even greater.

In its August report, Natural Resources Canada said that prices for the commodity had fallen 24 per cent from a year earlier. At the same time, gas production was up four per cent and the amount of gas in storage across the country had also risen by four per cent.

Lots of gas on hand combined with a milder than expected winter of 2005-06 meant the pressure for higher prices had dissipated.

As well, supplies of natural gas in the United States have never been higher, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. That's good news on this side of the border. Since natural gas markets on both sides of the border were deregulated more than 20 years ago, North America has become a single gas market. Gas in Western Canada is just as likely to flow north-south as it is east-west.

Enbridge Gas Distribution, which serves more than 1.7 million customers in Ontario, cut its rates as of Oct. 1, 2006. The average homeowner stands to save $90-$100, Enbridge spokeswoman Debbie Boukydis told CBC News Online.

Union Gas – which serves a million customers in Ontario – also lowered its rates as of Oct. 1, 2006. Its customers will save from $11-$18 per year, depending on which part of the province they live in.

But people who locked into long-term contracts with independent gas marketers will only save about a third of that, as they pay a little less for the cost of shipping the gas to their homes.

Manitoba Hydro – which also provides natural gas – lowered its rates on August 1, a move that will save consumers about $96 a year.

In Saskatchewan, government-owned SaskEnergy went before the Saskatchewan Rate Review Panel asking for a 5.4-per-cent increase in the rates its charges for natural gas. Originally, SaskEnergy had been looking for an 11-per-cent increase, which it said would have saved consumers $27 on their winter heating bills.

A day before the hearing, SaskEnergy said it was reducing the amount of the increase it wanted because of the recent decline in natural gas prices. Under the new proposal, the company says consumers will save about $60 between November and March.

But most gas companies set their rates every four months, to allow them to respond to market conditions. A colder- or warmer-than-expected winter could drive prices up or down.

If you use electricity to heat your home, you probably won't save anything. And in Nova Scotia, you may be paying more. Nova Scotia Power Inc. recently asked for permission to raise rates by 7.5 per cent. The utility is blaming the price of fuel oil. It says those rates are set well in advance, and the rates it's paying right now are substantially higher than when the price was last set.

The picture is a little brighter in Ontario, where the Ontario Energy Board announced that electricity rates in Ontario would be going down on Nov. 1, 2006 by about 5.8 per cent, saving the average residential customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of power about $3 a month. The move came six months after electricity rates in Ontario rose by up to 20 per cent, with the threat of more steep increases to come.

The OEB said part of the reason for the price drop was that it was able to buy the extra power it needed during the summer at rates lower than it had expected.