Diesel Falls 2.3¢ After Plunge in Crude Oil Prices
Diesel’s national average pump price declined 2.3 cents to $3.605 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported Dec. 1, after last week’s plunge in oil prices to a five-year low.
Gasoline also fell, dropping 4.3 cents to $2.778 a gallon, the lowest price in more than four years, DOE said after its weekly survey of filling stations.
Diesel’s decline left it at its lowest level since Feb. 21, 2011, when it was $3.573. Gasoline has not been as low since it was $2.732 on Oct. 4, 2010.
Diesel has risen just once in the 22 weeks since June, and the national average is 27.8 cents less than a year ago. It has declined almost 32 cents since then, while gas has plunged almost 93 cents.
Trucking’s main fuel fell in all five national regions, led by a 4.1-cent drop in the Midwest to $3.702 a gallon, after a 16-cent spike in that region three weeks ago.
The pump-price downturns followed last week’s plunge in oil prices to $66.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest since September 2009, Bloomberg News reported.
Last week’s $10 oil-price drop was largely due to OPEC rejecting production cuts from its 30 million-barrel-per-day output level, Bloomberg said. Crude futures rebounded $2.85 Dec. 1 to finish the Nymex trading day at $69 a barrel.
Each week, DOE surveys about 400 diesel filling stations and 800 gasoline stations to compile national average prices.
