In The News

National diesel prices down 4.1 cents; 3rd weekly drop in a row

Better late than never — diesel prices have caught up with oil’s lag of several weeks ago — at least for the time being. On-highway diesel prices dropped 4.1 cents today to $4.047 a gallon, down from $4.088 last week.

This was the third weekly drop since March 4, when it was $4.130.

Still, diesel hasn’t been under $4 a gallon since Jan. 28, when it was $3.927, and $4.15 a gallon was the most it was for all of 2012.

National diesel today was down 9.5 cents from what it was this same time last year. So although it’s going in the right direction, oil has inched upward and diesel will follow suit a little on down the road. There’s a lag time between when the spot price changes and when the retail price changes, and refining costs and profits and the distribution and marketing costs and profits can vary from month to month.

Because of this, there’s often a seesaw effect, with oil going down as diesel is going up and oil going up as diesel is going down.

In the Energy Information Administration’s California reporting sector diesel was 6.8 cents less (at $4.212) than it was the previous week ($2.280), and the West Coast (less California) reporting sector was down 6 cents from the week before.

In fact, all reporting sectors showed prices that were less than they were March 11.

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