Diesel Falls 4.9¢ to $2.235, Gas Rises Eight-Tenths to $2.034
The U.S. average retail diesel price fell for the seventh consecutive week and to the lowest point this year, down 4.9 cents a gallon to $2.235, the Department of Energy reported Dec. 28. The latest decline put diesel at its lowest price since May 18, 2009, when the price was $2.231.
Trucking’s main fuel is now 97.8 cents a gallon cheaper than a year ago, when the price was $3.213. Diesel prices fell in all regions.
Diesel fell the most in the Rocky Mountain region, dropping 7.7 cents to $2.227.
The lowest price was along the Gulf Coast, down 4.1 cents to $2.140. It was highest in California, slipping two-tenths of a cent to $2.609.
The national average price of gasoline last week rose eight-tenths of a cent to $2.034 a gallon, EIA said.
Crude oil futures closed on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $36.81 a barrel on Dec. 28, up $2.07 from $34.74 the previous week.
Denton Cinquegrana, an analyst with the Oil Price Information Service, told Transport Topics, “It’s decent time to be a trucker because of diesel prices.”
He said they should remain low unless “a major polar vortex comes in” and spikes demand for heating oil, which would cut refineries’ output of diesel, which comes from the same base stock.
Also, he said the price of oil would bottom out during the first half of the year.
“Whether that low is $32.40, which would also match the 2008 Great Recession lows, or into the $20s as some are predicting, and then we rebound a little bit. ... I think you can forget about $100 [a barrel] for quite a while. I think we can even forget about $70 and $80 for quite a while,” he said.
Instead, he said he expected oil prices in 2016 to rebound into the $50s or low $60s, attributing the rise to likely increased demand from refineries as they expand production of higher-margin gasoline. Plus there will be “a little bit of demand growth as some other economies start to develop.”
