Diesel Prices Rise While Gas Prices Fall-AGAIN

Here it is from today's AAA Fuel Price Report:

AAA: Gas prices keep moving lower
Pump prices for regular unleaded finish a week of declines as demand eases; diesel inches higher.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Gasoline prices edged lower Friday for a full week of consecutive declines, according to travel club AAA's daily fuel report.

The nationwide average price for a gallon of regular unleaded hit $2.69, down about a penny from $2.70 on Thursday.

The average price for regular unleaded is now nearly 12 percent lower than it was when it hit a record high of $3.05 on Labor Day in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Gas prices have steadily fallen over the past two weeks on signs that soaring energy prices are finally starting to take their toll on consumption.

Residents pay the most in Hawaii, where the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded hit $3.28. They pay the least in Oklahoma, where $2.33 is the average price.

U.S. government data released Wednesday showed demand for all petroleum products fell by 3.2 percent from the same period last year, a bigger drop than last week's 2.8 percent. The report said demand for gasoline fell 2.2 percent and demand for distillates falling 4 percent.

Although the price of regular unleaded has moved off its highs and is starting to track downward, prices are still about 34 percent stronger than a year ago. A year ago, the average cost of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was about 68 cents cheaper at $2.01, according to AAA.

Retail diesel, meanwhile, gained 2 cents to $3.22 a gallon Friday. Diesel prices have moved higher and are up about 45 percent from last year.

Analysts say gas prices are falling as the U.S., the world's biggest user of fuel, puts the brakes on consumption. However, many expect prices to rebound as winter approaches.

-- from staff and wire reports

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/21/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm

--Nate

Does Diesel really save money?
In summer, diesel is on average 20 cents lower than gas.
In this winter, diesel is 90 cents to one dollar higher than gas.Gas price is DFW area is $2.49 but diesel is $3.49;
This sucks, especially all I heard is that Crude oil price (below $60 today)has been gone down lately. I don't know why.The only explanation is that all of Oil cartel is munipulating the market together just to make more profit due to high profit margin on diesel.
You already notice every gas station lists diesel price higher than gas.

There are two groups of people use diesel:
1. Transportation folks such as those who dirve 18-wheelers, They can always charge back to the retailers whom they ship goods to.
2. Diesel passenger vehicles-- Because only very small number of people drive diesel vehicles, compared with gas vehicle. The high diesel price will NOT in the news and
NOBODY in this group has complained and protected.

What really sucks is that there is nothing diesel passenger car dirvers can do about!

Well, to say there is nothing that diesel drivers can do is wrong--they could park their vehicles. It's not quite "sticking it to the cartel", but it is an option.

I hope you mean the oil cartel in the states, not OPEC. While they do their best to make sure that oil prices stay high so they can make money, it seems that oil prices are due to refineries, not crude. For instance, it's 42 gallons / barrel. At $60/barrel, the crude cost is $1.42. The rest of the cost is added here.

Does diesel save money? 30mpg gasser at $2.49/gallon is 8.3 cents/mile, fuel cost. 40mpg diesel at $3.49 is 8.7 cents/mile; a 50mpg diesel is 6.7 cents/mile. So, if you were to compare say a Civic at 38mpg and my Jetta at its 45mpg, with your fuel costs then yeah, diesel isn't cheaper.

OTOH, I don't see Civic's coming in station wagon form. Nor with leather etc. For me, I wanted the kit and kaboodle, not just low operating cost but additional space for a growing family. Usually diesel is lower than gas; it ought to be around gasoline in my opinion. And when it is, I win on cost/mile.

For total cheapness, I'd say buy a well used Civic. Buy one that is 4 years old or so, that should be like 5k; drive it for a few years and dump it. That's probably 'bout the cheapest it gets; lowest repair costs, fuel costs and purchase costs.

But once you get beyond that, then you are back into a familar arguement here...

Just so you know, the Newark, OH paper, the Advocate, ran this article, on the front page of the October 19th issue:

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs....=73224062011112

Enjoy...

No mention of diesel cars, though - more the impact on truckers...

The price of diesel has to come down. It cannot remain that high for an extended period of time. Our economy's blood is diesel fuel, the more it costs the more everything else costs. Inflation could skyrocket if it goes and stays higher.

If it gets bad enough (the price differential of gas/diesel) this winter the wife and I will drive her Buick Century in protest. It gets exactly half the mileage of the Jetta. Ever since I bought the Jetta we basically parked the Buick. She even rides with me when I go to work, most of the way to her work, and takes public transportation the rest of the way.

--Nate

Diesel prices have come down in MA, but are about .20 higher than RUL. I was in Dallas yesterday and there RUL is about .70 less than diesel. Yikes!

diesel is up *AGAIN* in chicagoland....yesterday 3.60...today...3.65. I would say more but would be banned from the forums for foul language.

sometimes i long for an appliance

You don't have a fridge, stove, freezer or toaster?

Get used to it folks.....Unless the economy goes into a recession, expect to pay more for diesel feel relative to gas than you have for the past 10 years. Why? Overall demand for distillates (kerosene, jet fuel, diesel fuel, a.k.a home heating fuel) is rising relative to demand for gasoline, and a lot of that in the U.S is commercial use. What do you think the rest of the world (who use more diesel powered vehiclesand fewer gasoilne ones than the U.S does with the gasloine portion of the crude oil they refine? Export it to the U.S. It is not necessarliy a bad thing the U.S. does not have a lot of passenger diesel vehicles.

Remember, if you want to crack a barrel of crude oil to get your diesel, you have to to something with the gasoline (you can't just dump it in the rivers like they used to do in the latter 1800's when they were primarily after the kerosene).

Right now you are competing with production disruptions, regular commercial demand for diesel,
(trucking, rail, other transporatation, all strong), demand for jet fuel (you can produce more jet fuel, less diesel), seasonal agricultural demand for diesel, (harvest time and transport to market) advance demand for home heating fuel (home owners wanting tanks full in advance of the actual heating season), speculative buying.

Diesel prices I saw today were, in many places, $1.00 a gallon more than regular unleaded, close to a 40% premium. Diesel, by BTU's, should be 10-15% higher. Tomorrow, I will be buying some Biodiesel at $3.00/gallon, a relative bargain, even with the lower BTU content.

P.S - I have been doing my part to lower diesel prices this weekend and pump up gas prices.....I have been driving my Ford Ranger 4X4. (Still costs over 2x times per mile for fuel than my Golf at $1.00 per gallon for diesel).

In western NY for the past month or so, up till this week, diesel was same price or cheaper than RUL, ~$2.99 / gal. Today I filled up for $3.09 / gal, RUL was $2.89, mid grade was $3.07. Premium was a bit higher.

Not sure what will happen starting next month when the winter brew starts flowing from the pumps, but hopefully it won't go up.

I don't shop for the cheapest price in fuel, I basically have 2 Hess stations that are near my route to work and get most all my fuel from those stations.

I don't mind $3/ gallon. Once it gets to $4 or $5, I'll start minding though, cause then it will make a decent impact on my monthly spending.

diesel is up *AGAIN* in chicagoland....yesterday 3.60...today...3.65. I would say more but would be banned from the forums for foul language.

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Here in SoCal, we're in the unusual situation of not having the highest priced fuel in the Mainland USA. Normally diesel is 20-30 cents/gallon higher in SoCal than the Midwest or East Coast. But right now it's easy to find diesel for $3.19/gallon and relatively easy to find it for $2.99/gallon.

Gasoline prices are falling quicker, with some stations charging less than $2.60.

But I have to believe that refinery managers are shifting their production schedules to take advantage of the higher prices for diesel and HHO. So within a few weeks the spread between ULR and diesel should narrow, as the price of both continues to decline.

The question I always have is why are there so many regional price differences? Why is diesel more expensive in Dallas than in CT? And by a large margin? CT uses the heating oil in the winter far more than Dallas does. I saw RUL for $2.59 today and diesel is $2.99. Why so much cheaper than in many other parts of the country?

Where I am, diesel just dropped $0.20 practically overnight to $2.99 (this station isn't always the cheapest, but I drive past it every day so I notice the trends).

In Newark, OH (I go to school there), I went ahead and checked the MSN Autos pricing thingy, and it ranged from $2.999 (at the Murphy USA (read: Wal-Mart)) to $3.449 (at the Speedway).

The Speedway and Murphy USA are within 1000 feet of each other.

FWIW, at the Speedway, it is now a $1.01 spread.

are you folks sure it isn't the stations gouging?

The station I go to is almost always cheaper than RUL, and it's good quality.

RUL $2.58, Diesel $3.58!!! My friend in Minnesota said he just paid $2.18 for RUL! HELP!

RUL $2.58, Diesel $3.58!!! My friend in Minnesota said he just paid $2.18 for RUL! HELP!

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I'm in MN, and this morning I saw diesel was $1.40 more per gallon than RUL.

You better believe that a lot of guys are going to be running HHO in their TDI's & pickup trucks this winter...

the diesel premium will shrink, soon

Regardless of why gasoline prices have fallen so sharply -- either falling demand or a huge but temporary oversupply -- it's extremely unlikely that the current premium for diesel will last more than a few weeks.

If wholesalers are practically giving away gasoline, to make room for the next shipments from the refineries, then the refineries are going to have to make some changes.

They cannot just keep producing the same mix of gasoline and diesel, when the marketplace is providing the clearest possible signal that diesel and HHO are where profits can be made.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_stoc_wstk_dcu_nus_w.htm

I don't like to bring any politics into this but I strongly believe that the current administration got the oil companies on the phone and told them to ramp up gasoline production up in order to quiet the natives and address the consumer confidence drop following the hurricanes. Add in that the oil companies exported large amounts of heating oil this year so they are now playing catch up. I fail to understand how the gov't and the oil companies can't see that our economy runs on diesel. It may take semis and tractors on the white house lawn to convince them.

I don't like to bring any politics into this but I strongly believe that the current administration got the oil companies on the phone and told them to ramp up gasoline production up in order to quiet the natives and address the consumer confidence drop following the hurricanes. Add in that the oil companies exported large amounts of heating oil this year so they are now playing catch up. I fail to understand how the gov't and the oil companies can't see that our economy runs on diesel. It may take semis and tractors on the white house lawn to convince them.

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I can just imagine a trucker or five running out of hours right in front of the White House, or if the trucking industry decides to try to shut down Houston by declining loads going there.

It may take semis and tractors on the white house lawn to convince them.

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At current prices, it costs truckers about 50 cents/mile for fuel. Not many would spend the money to drive to Washington, when fuel surcharges allow them to continue to make money hauling actual loads.

Make no mistake, they are not happy at all about the current price of diesel fuel. While they may blame the hurricanes or the oil companies, most of them know the federal government didn't cause the problem and really can't fix it.

I'm not trying to suggest that the government is responsible but no one will convince me that a drop of a couple of dollars in the price of oil and a small decrease in demand is the cause of the recent 30% drop in the price of RUL gas. The old "supply and demand" reasoning doesn't quite cover this situation. Clearly there is adequate oil and rather than let the SUV driving public "suffer" the oil companies have decided to stick it to the diesel users. That means all of us will be paying more for just about everything, including taxes to help pay for all the diesel powered buses,municipal vehicles etc.. unless this current situation levels out as Red has suggested it will. The President has many friends in big oil and he might be able to convince them that the current surge in diesel prices might be a fatal blow to what is a pretty shaky economy right now. Bio diesel is looking very appealing to me but doesn't help me in the cold and long Wisconsin winter.

Something DOES NOT add up. The diesel reserves we have are at or above the historical average and demand is down 4% over last year. Prices should be way lower than they are now. I'd just love to know why they are not. The high price of diesel fuel is not demand driven right now, that is for sure. I think someone is manipulating the prices.

--Nate

Somebody needs to get on the news for this...

I wish there were more diesel cars, so that we could actually stage a protest...

I do think that the trucking industry needs to do something, though... they're the backbone of the economy, after all, and can actually do something about these ridiculous diesel prices.

FWIW, I plan on brewing my own B100 when I get a diesel Rabbit. I figure, even if I only make 10 gallons (one tankfull) per week, I'll still have excess B100.

FYI, in VT, you can find diesel #2 pretty easily for $2.89/gal (don't believe the postings on vermontgasprices.com that show diesel for $2.67/gal - they are wrong since I just went by all those stations in Swanton !) ULR lowest price is around $2.59.gal. So a +$.30 premium for diesel here right now. My wife's Passat needs the hitest (runs like crap on anything less than 92 octane) and that's around $2.83 so I still see a huge benefit running the Gold TDI. With winter coming it will be interesting to see what diesel does w.r.t. gas. As people have pointed out, having diesel stay high is a BAD thing for our economy in general and the prices will self-correct over time. And don't forget what happened right after Katrina where diesel #2 was on average $.20 LOWER than ULR, at least up here, so things go up and down. However, right now, in the hybrid vs. diesel discussion, a lot cheaper to run a Prius with ULR gas vs. TDI w/diesel. And no, not wanting to start the same old hybrid vs. diesel argument again!!

I filled my TDI for 45 dollars last night! Diesel was listed for $2.99 and gas for $2.29. This is the largest spread I've seen in this area, but I can't really complain. I have a car that averages 46mpg, and is a hell of a lot more fun to drive than any super-econo gasser that I've driven. Fuel prices are not prohibitively expensive at this point, hopefully they'll stay that way. It would, however, be nice to see diesel prices drop below RUG like they were when I bought my car in March of 2003. Passing by a gas station getting disgusting mileage and paying less per gallon was really something to rub in the faces of gasser drivers.

--Matt

I filled my TDI for 45 dollars last night! Diesel was listed for $2.99 and gas for $2.29. This is the largest spread I've seen in this area

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I filled up this morning, paid $2.969 for diesel and the ULR was $2.899. The spread of only 7 cents was the smallest I've seen in several weeks, or longer since I don't usually pay attention to gas prices.

For those of you who live elsewhere, and are complaining because diesel is $1/gallon more than ULR... have patience.