Diesel Drops 6.4¢ to Below $4 a Gallon; Gasoline Falls 11.1¢ to $3.849
Diesel took its biggest drop in a year, declining 6.4 cents to $3.997 a gallon, while gasoline dropped by more than a dime, the Department of Energy said.
Trucking’s main fuel has fallen in four of the past five weeks and is 12.7 cents below the $4.124 per-gallon price of three weeks ago, which had been the highest since August 2008.
Gasoline, meanwhile, fell 11.1 cents to $3.849, its second straight decline, leaving gas at its lowest level in five weeks, DOE said following its weekly surveys of filling stations.
The diesel downturn is the biggest since a 7.3-cent drop on May 24, 2010, and it is now 97.6 cents higher than the same week a year ago, while gas is $1.063 higher year-over-year.
Monday’s diesel price is the first in seven weeks below $4 a gallon. Its all-time high was $4.764 per gallon, set on July 14, 2008, while gasoline’s was $4.114, set a week earlier.
The prices have fallen along with dropping oil prices, which have declined from a more than two-and-a-half-year high $113.93 per-barrel on April 29 to below $98 Monday.
Crude futures fell $2.40 on the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday to finish the trading day at $97.70 a barrel, Bloomberg reported.
Each week, DOE surveys about 350 diesel filling stations to compile a national snapshot average price.
