Diesel Prices Decline; First Drop in Seven Weeks
The national average price of diesel fuel dropped this week for the first time in seven weeks, to $1.479 cents a gallon, on expectations that oil-producing countries will agree to produce more petroleum.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to meet March 27 to decide whether to maintain strict output quotas that have strangled production and created record high diesel fuel and gasoline prices. OPEC officials have indicated they are considering increasing production by 1 million to 2 million barrels a day.
Some analysts are worried that won’t be good enough to ease the demand of oil-thirsty markets. After a brief period at 10-week lows around $27.46 a barrel March 22, those fears pushed the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures contract for May back up as much as 32 cents on March 23.
“Even a 2-million-barrel increase in quotas won’t rebuild inventories right now,” Bill O’Grady, director of fundamental futures research at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis, told Bloomberg News. “Refineries need more oil to make gasoline for the summer.”
 | Fuel Prices | |||
| Week of Mar. 20: | ||||
| source | price | change | ||
| DOE | 147.9 | -1.7 | ||
| Comdata* | 146.7 | -0.2 | ||
| OPIS self-serve* | 147.9 | -0.3 | ||
| OPIS wholesale* | 88.5 | -4.8 | ||
| *Comdata and OPIS figures are for the week of Mar. 11-17. Click here for more fuel prices. | ||||
 | More coverage on Truckline | |||
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