Diesel Falls 2.5¢ to $3.832; Gasoline Drops to 3-Year Low
The average price of diesel fuel fell 2.5 cents to $3.832 a gallon, its lowest price in more than four months, as gasoline dropped to its lowest price since February 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy reported Nov. 12.
The report from DOE’s Energy Information Administration reflected the price on Nov. 11, since DOE was closed for Veterans Day. The diesel price drop was the third in a row.
Trucking’s main fuel is now 14.8 cents cheaper than it was a year ago, DOE said in its weekly survey of fueling stations. Diesel is now at its lowest since July 8.
Gasoline fell 7.1 cents in the same report to $3.194 a gallon. It is the lowest gasoline price since Feb. 21, 2011, when it was $3.189.
Diesel’s pump price has not risen in 10 weeks. The price was unchanged from the previous week for two of those weekly reports.
Each week, DOE surveys about 400 diesel filling stations and 800 gasoline stations to compile national average prices.
Earlier Nov. 12, the International Energy Agency predicted that shale-oil extraction will help the United States become the world’s largest oil producer by 2015, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The report did not predict an oil output figure for 2015, but it said the U.S. will produce 11.6 million barrels a day in 2020, up from 9.2 million in 2012, Bloomberg News reported.
Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” are helping the U.S. reach its highest level of energy independence in two decades, and the country will reach its highest level ever in 2035, IEA said. Crude oil will cost $128 per barrel that year, it predicted.
