Diesel fuel prices fell for the ninth straight week, falling 6.5 cents to $3.781 a gallon, while gas prices also continued its slide, the Department of Energy said Monday.
Gas prices decreased 4 cents to $3.572 per gallon, the lowest price since Feb. 13, DOE said.
The decline leaves diesel fuel prices 17.3 cents below the same week last year and at its lowest level since Oct. 10, when it averaged $3.721 per gallon, DOE said. It is hard to believe that diesel fuel is 17 cents cheaper today then a year ago. What a rollercoster ride fuel prices have been on.
Diesel fuel has fallen 36.7 cents in the past nine weeks, DOE records showed.
The gas prices drop was its 10th straight, during which time the price has plunged 36.9 cents. Gas is now 14.1 cents under the same week last year.
Diesel fuel will be going for 10th straight drop this week.
According to Denton Cinquegrana, executive editor of the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), data tracked by OPIS shows that today’s diesel average is $3.8216 per gallon.
He told FleetOwner that that is “not the lowest of the year, but pretty close as the lowest I see in our database for 2012 is $3.8164, less than a penny away. And I expect we’ll be seeing 2012 lows before the end of the week.”
Cinquegrana said the diesel trend is “absolutely pointing lower as oil prices have dropped significantly [recently] and inventories of diesel in the U.S. are fair. Current diesel stocks are about 12 million barrels behind where they were this time last year, but the market is not in a supply panic. Supplies are okay enough that the U.S. is exporting diesel still.”
As for what’s driving oil prices, Cinquegrana says it is all about macroeconomics. “European debt concerns, worries about China and about a possible double-dip recession in the U.S. are driving the market,” he explained. “A recession in any of these places would lead to less oil demand.”
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