Diesel Rises 1.6¢ to $2.507; Crude Inches Up to $47
The U.S. average retail price of diesel rose 1.6 cents to $2.507 as crude prices inched up toward $47 a barrel after Saudi Arabia said it would make additional cuts in its own production.
It was diesel’s fourth consecutive weekly increase, with the gains in that period adding up to 4.2 cents.
Diesel now costs 12.8 cents more than it did a year ago, when the price was $2.379 a gallon, the Department of Energy said July 24.
Regional prices for trucking’s main fuel rose everywhere.
The U.S. average price for regular gasoline jumped 3.4 cents to $2.312 a gallon. The cost is 13 cents more than it was a year ago, DOE’s Energy Information Administration said.
Weekly gasoline prices were unchanged in the West Coast area, and fell in the West Coast Less California region by 1.2 cents, but they rose everywhere else, according to EIA.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at $46.34 per barrel July 24, compared with $46.02 on July 17.
Oil rose as Saudi Arabia pledged deep cuts to its crude exports, while Halliburton Co. said the shale boom is slowing down, according to Bloomberg News.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, will limit exports to 6.6 million barrels a day in August, 1 million bpd fewer than a year earlier, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said, Bloomberg reported.
Meanwhile, Halliburton, the world’s top fracking services provider, said U.S. explorers are “tapping the brakes” as oil struggles to breach $50 a barrel, according to Bloomberg.
At the same time, the weekly U.S. rig count fell to 950 during the week of July 21, two rigs fewer than the week before and 488 more than a year earlier, oil field services company Baker Hughes Inc. reported.
Houston-based Baker Hughes ranks No. 14 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America.
