Diesel Hits Record High As Crude Surges

Ten-year highs for crude oil propelled diesel fuel prices to the highest on record, surpassing levels established in 1990 during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

	Rising Crude Oil and Diesel Prices
		Diesel			Crude Oil
	Source: Bloomberg News

The federal Energy Information Administration issued a sobering report on the low levels of U.S. fuel inventories and said gas prices could go as high as $1.80 a gallon this summer, but analysts said diesel prices are not likely to follow suit and may actually taper off.

But the trucking industry wasn’t taking any chances. American Trucking Associations and representatives from some of the industry’s biggest fleets headed to the nation’s capital to lobby for relief from the ravenous fuel costs eating into their profits.

The national average retail price of diesel rose 2.9 cents last week to $1.49 a gallon, according to the EIA, the highest mark since the Department of Energy agency started collecting the data seven years ago.

Truckers haven’t seen the national average approach $1.50 since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Prices then rose as high as $1.447 a gallon, according to NTS Inc., a fuel card company that based its average on transactions at 2,500 truck stops in the United States and Canada.

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