Diesel Falls to $2.379, Down 4.2¢ in Fourth Consecutive Drop
The U.S. average retail diesel price slid for the fourth week in a row, down 4.2 cents a gallon to $2.379, the Department of Energy reported Dec. 7.
The latest decline put diesel just 2.5 cents more than the lowest U.S. average retail price in nearly 6 1/2 years, $2.354 set June 1, 2009.
Analysts said key global suppliers voted earlier this month to continue oil production at volumes that have helped keep prices low.
Trucking’s main fuel is $1.156 a gallon cheaper than a year ago, when the price was $3.535.
Diesel prices fell in all regions. It was lowest along the Gulf Coast at $2.232.
Although down from the week before, California had the nation’s highest price at $2.704.
DOE’s Energy Information Administration also said the national average price of gasoline fell six-tenths of a cent to $2.053 a gallon, as prices dropped in all regions except the Midwest, where it rose 1.3 cents to $1.890.
Crude oil futures closed below $40 a barrel, settling at $37.68 on Dec. 7, or $24.35 less than on Dec. 7 a year earlier when it closed at $62.03.
Meanwhile, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries last week agreed not to reduce production until possibly the second half of 2016.
OPEC, Bloomberg News reported, “will keep pumping about 31.5 million barrels a day,” the group’s president, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, said Dec.4 after a meeting of ministers in Vienna. Members set aside their previous daily output target of 30 million barrels, a ceiling breached for 18 months. OPEC will wait until June to decide on a new limit, Secretary General Abdalla El-Badri said.
OPEC produces 60% of the oil traded internationally and 40% of total production, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.
U.S. average #Diesel fuel price on 12/07= $2.379/gal, DOWN $0.042 from week ago: https://t.co/p2bTgU9drA #truckers pic.twitter.com/Xh7vZ3PLAP — EIA (@EIAgov) December 7, 2015
