Diesel Price Slides, Private Surveys Show
Diesel’s national average price fell between 0.6 cent and 1 cent from a week ago to about $3.83 a gallon, according to private surveys.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration — closed as of this week because of the federal government shutdown — had reported a national diesel average price of $3.897 on Oct. 7.
The price at truck stops was $3.834 a gallon as of Oct. 14, according to ProMiles’ FuelSurchargeIndex.org, down a penny from its price last week.
FSI said its figures were more relevant to the trucking industry than official government figures, with its price averaged from thousands of truck stops in its database.
“We don’t deal with the automotive side of the industry, so we don’t collect pricing data from convenience stores that may only carry auto diesel or don’t have pumps accessible to trucks,” said Tony Stroncheck, president of sales and marketing for ProMiles Software.
Separately, AAA reported its diesel price for Oct. 15 was $3.876 a gallon, down 0.6 cent from its figure of last week.
The motorist group, whose daily prices are provided by the Oil Price Information Service, said that gasoline’s national average is $3.347 a gallon, down 0.2 cent from a week ago.
EIA, an agency of the Department of Energy, reported a gasoline national average price of $3.367 last week.
