Diesel continued its uphill climb, rising 2.9 cents to $4.123 a gallon, its seventh straight gain and the ninth in 10 weeks, while gasoline also rose, the Department of Energy said Monday.
Gas gained 3.6 cents to $3.829, also its seventh straight increase and the 11th in the past 12 weeks, DOE said following its weekly survey of filling stations.
Although diesel’s rate of increase slowed from the 4.3-cent and 9.1-cent gains of the past two weeks, the price is the highest since May 2.
Trucking’s main fuel is now 21.5 cents higher than the same week a year ago, according to DOE records.
Gasoline is at its highest level since May 23 and is 26.2 cents over the same week last year.
Diesel crossed the $4 mark two weeks ago, for the first time since November, when it topped that level for one week. Prior to that, it had not been more than $4 since May.
It topped the $4 per-gallon mark in all of DOE’s five national regions for the first time since May, with a high of $4.348 on the West Coast and a low of $4.016 in the Midwest.
In California, a subset of the West Coast, diesel’s average was $4.483 per gallon, the highest of any subregion.
Oil prices have been over $105 a barrel for the past three weeks, after crossing the $100 per-barrel level in mid-February.
Crude futures fell Monday for the first time in four days, slipping $1.06 to $106.34 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg reported, citing concerns about slugging Chinese economic growth.
Each week, DOE surveys about 350 diesel filling stations to compile a national snapshot average price.
