Diesel price trends - Past and future?

I never used to pay attention to diesel prices but I've heard here and other places that traditionally diesel was about the same as 87 octane. For the last few years I've been noticing it and I dont think I've seen it dip below a few cents less than premium. I live in Northern Va for whatever difference that makes.

I guess that isn't par for the course across the country? I know more and more stuff has been moved with trucks, wouldnt that make the price of diesel go up country wide?

I've heard that long term diesel demand is predicted to increase heavily but it wasnt mentioned what will drive that demand (I assumed foreign markets) can we expect that the price of diesel will rise more quickly than gasoline?

Right now I drive a standard 2.0 that gets 29mpg on 87 octane. I'm considering buying a wrecked tdi that would allow me to get 50~mpg with diesel. I understand it would take awhile to pay off the cost of the swap but I wish I knew if the value proposition is likely to get worse or better over time.

chart of diesel cost vs, 'all grades of gasoline'

Here is a chart of diesel cost vs, 'all grades of gasoline' over the period 3/94 - 9/10. It is a screen capture fro my iphone. Summary- similar costs, sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower.

Yes, 30 years ago it was usually less than regular gasoline. However as the gas price rose and the protests and government investigations mounted, diesel started rising in price to offset the costs for keeping gasoline prices low. Now it always costs more than premium.

D2 used to cost less than rug as few as five or six years ago. The big change came when the refinereies had to start making ultra low sulphur diesel. All over the road diesel in North America is now less than 15 ppm sulphur. In making this change, some of the refineries stopped producing over the road diesel. The cost of retrofitting the reactors was too high. Add to that the weak dollar and the refineries are shipping more fuel overseas where they can generate a higher profit margin. US has typically supplied the majority of Europes diesel fuel. This dynamic will change as the refineries in the Middle East come online and start fulfilling more of Europes demands.

Around the Charlotte area, diesel typically stays between mid grade and premium. As long as the price of D2 remains within 30% of the price of rug, driving my tdi is more economical.

As for the last part of your question: There is no compelling economical arguement for going with a diesel engine over a gas engine. The payback time is too great for most consumers to be meaningful. Those of us on here, drive diesel cars because we love the low end torque and that feel of power in a small car.

Payback on buying a diesel is a moving target.

My previous car was a Mini Cooper S. 27mpg on premium fuel, and more fun to drive than almost anything else I've ever had. Cost was about 12 cents / mile.

The good and kind folks at BMW financial gave me an end of lease buy out of $18k

The JSW diesel was $24k with a comprehensive warranty and a better stereo, and new everything. The value of the warranty is hard to pin down, but it was worth something.

So let's say I got a few free oil changes and some peace of mind - Is $500 a fair value?

So, it cost me an extra $5500 to trade a Mini Cooper with 50k miles for a JSW with 7 miles on the odometer.

JSW cost to burn fuel is 7 cents per mile, so I'm saving 4 cents per mile.

I drive 50k miles per year for an annual fuel savings of $2000.

Payback is less than three years on an engine that should have no problems running for a quarter million miles.

Yeah, I miss having a convertible. I miss parking when I can almost reach the rear bumper from the driver's seat.

I don't miss making two trips to the grocery store because only half a week's groceries will fit in the damn thing. I don't miss run flat tires for $800 every 12k miles.

I like my JSW. Even if I only got 40 miles per gallon I'd be happy.

I'd say my payback on the TDI was really fast.

Two ways to calc it, one way is against the cost of the TDI option Vs. the gasser. The TDI was just over $1,000. THat makes my Diesel engine free fast, and cheaper to run forever after.


Or I can calculate it Vs. the previous car. It was a new Jeep that got less than 18mpg, sometimes 12 depending on terrain and my speed. That payback calc is probably just months....

Or I can point out that I wanted the stick, the auto that comes on most gassers was also about $1,000 extra. Taking the TDI stick is the same as an auto gasser.

Or I can just remember that I bought my TDI below invoice. With a written contract to buy my VW parts "at cost", for life from the dealers parts counter.

TDI = win, win, win.

3516ACERT said:

JSW cost to burn fuel is 7 cents per mile, so I'm saving 4 [?]cents per mile.

I drive 50k miles per year for an annual fuel savings of $2000.

I like my JSW. Even if I only got 40 miles per gallon I'd be happy.
[Not nearly good enough!]

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With a manual 6 MT, you should be getting much better F E.
Try slowing down a little and upshifting earlier, using your excellent low rpm torque.

Your tank averages should be in the low 50s unless you are doing a lot of local city driving.



D

Derrel,

At 50 miles per $3.60 gallon it costs 7.2 cents per mile.

Did you do the math?

3516ACERT said:

Derrel,

At 50 miles per $3.60 gallon it costs 7.2 cents per mile.

Did you do the math?

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No.
I referred to your comparison to the Mini, 12 cents to 7 cents, a five cent difference.

'My previous car was a Mini Cooper S. 27 mpg on premium fuel, and more fun to
drive than almost anything else I've ever had. Cost was about 12 cents/mile.'

So you are getting fifty (50) mpg?

I wish we could get good D2 here for that price. We are
now up in the fours to slightly higher for quality diesel.



D

3516ACERT said:

Derrel,

At 50 miles per $3.60 gallon ...

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Jeez, I wish it was that low out here in the CPR! I just spent $50 yesterday for 12.6 gallons ($3.969/gallon) at Valero. The Shell station around the corner from me was charging $4.199/gallon yesterday, up from $4.099 the day before.

And now there is a tropical depression forming in the Gulf. Drillers are shutting down, so fuel will be rising.

I've found that west-coast diesel prices SEEM to be a bit out-of-line with the rest of the country, east of the rockies (particularly in more remote areas, like where I live - and biodiesel is also hard to find at reasonable prices anymore).

I read an explanation a couple of years ago, about this having to do with all the diesel refineries being in the east, and there being only two ways (routes) to distribute diesel to the west coast over land.

Paying for maintenance, for my Jetta - I've not had the best of luck, over the years, and I save a TON of money, by doing the work myself. The cost, of course is - well, I just spent my entire last Labor Day weekend freaking-out under the hood over my impending emissions test, instead of barbecuing at the beach and drinking beer.

I guess my options were: Icould have taken it to the stealer, of course, and instead of paying $300 for new plugs and MAF, and losing my weekend, they could have told me my reverse snardi-valve was bad, and billed me $1500, and then left something out of adjustment such that I may be surprised with a catastrophic failure in 10,000 miles.

How much has this "efficiency" cost me?

I know that my Integra had zero problems in 5 years, absolutely nothing, not even a light-bulb, and got 32mpg highway. Not great.

need4speed said:

I've found that west-coast diesel prices SEEM to be a bit out-of-line with the rest of the country, east of the rockies (particularly in more remote areas, like where I live - and biodiesel is also hard to find at reasonable prices anymore)

Click to expand...

The latter shouldn't surprise you since the CPR loathes ADM, et. al.

kjclow said:

D2 used to cost less than rug as few as five or six years ago. The big change came when the refinereies had to start making ultra low sulphur diesel. All over the road diesel in North America is now less than 15 ppm sulphur. In making this change, some of the refineries stopped producing over the road diesel. The cost of retrofitting the reactors was too high. Add to that the weak dollar and the refineries are shipping more fuel overseas where they can generate a higher profit margin. US has typically supplied the majority of Europes diesel fuel. This dynamic will change as the refineries in the Middle East come online and start fulfilling more of Europes demands.

.

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Don't you mean in America?Diesel fuel has been on average cheaper than RUG in Canada for the last 10 yrs that I have run diesel

edit:
http://super-gas-saver.com/Save-Gas-Blog/2008/10/why-is-diesel-more-expensive-than-gas/

Yes, Sorry that I forget about our friendes to the north. I always check the prices when in Canada and wonder why the D2/rug prices are so out of balance here in the states.

kjclow said:

Yes, Sorry that I forget about our friendes to the north. I always check the prices when in Canada and wonder why the D2/rug prices are so out of balance here in the states.

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Probably because they buy it in smaller quantities. They buy it in those small liters whereas we buy it in larger gallons. Of course 40 years ago they were so wasteful as to buy their fuel in even larger gallons than we do. However that really helped MY mpg when I drove up there. There's a thought: if the U.S. government wants to increase mileage, just use the larger gallon!

I know, let's switch to the metric system in the US so no one will know that there car gets poor mileage.

kjclow said:

Yes, Sorry that I forget about our friendes to the north. I always check the prices when in Canada and wonder why the D2/rug prices are so out of balance here in the states.

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Diesel was > than RUG when I drove to Vegas in 2004, it actualy screwed up my prediction that we could drive Prince george-Vegas-Prince george for 300 ... it ended up costing 340$

Diesel fuel was also cheaper in france & GB when I was there biking in 2007 and from the seat of my bike I can say 9 out of 10 cars that passed me were turbo diesels even the more expensive sports sedans cars like the audi A3/A4/ BMW 3 series/BMW 4 series

I would bet diesel is cheaper than rug almost anywhere in the world but America and as the link i posted claimed ... it won't change anytime soon eh?

Well in the toronto area i pay 1.19 per liter where as reg gas cost , 1.31 per liter today. The gas price changes every couple of days either up or down. Diesel prices are always static. There are 3.78 liters to 1 US gallon- That equals $4.95 per gallon. Of that price roughly 45% of it is tax. . So i filled up the other day- 52.33 liters(13.84 us gal). Price paid was 1.19 cents per liter.=$ 62.27. I really feel sorry for the gassers- at 1.31 that would be $68.55. I get double the mileage as compared to my last gasser car. Right now over 700mi per tank. I used to get really pissed off passing a gas station and see the price change almost daily- If its reported in a newscast gas prices are to increase the next day by 3-6 cents a liter, the stations are swamped! Fights break out! When hurricane katrina hit our price went from about 1.00 a liter and peaked at 1.36 a liter. I was smart enough to see it coming so i filled 20 gal worth of containers and rode it out- After a couple of weeks price was back down- Funny thing is- during that period people drove really slow to conserve fuel- now the price of gas at 1.31, everybody speeding again. Funny what people get used to.

kjclow said:

I know, let's switch to the metric system in the US so no one will know that there car gets poor mileage.

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...uhhh...no one would notice...they're all staring at their GPSs!

Or have the cell phone to their ear- illegal here- makes em brain dead behind the wheel!

They DON'T announce price hikes here; it changes daily or even more frequently. I've seen one price in the morning, a higher price later in the day, and then an even higher price in the evening. However, if the prices are on a downward trend, then they are only reduced once a week or every couple of weeks.

At the Indian casino Shell station around the corner, today RG is US$3.899, MG is $3.999, Premium is $4.099, and Diesel is $4.249. That works out to $1.031/$1.058/1.084/1.124 per liter respectively.

If the prices dropped here to your prices there would be alot of people with suspended licences for sure!

At least in NC and SC, they can only changes prices once a day. Otherwise the station owner is supposed to be heading for jail.

There is a glut of crude in Cushing OK which is why West Texas Intermediate is lagging in the $87 range where Brent is $110.

Part of the solution would be the Keystone Pipeline expansion which has been approved by the US Department of State (international p-line). But there are groups which assume the synthetic (oil sand) crude is more dangerous than conventional crude. Increased domestic production is also a cause of this glut.

I doubt any tropical storm in the GoM will cause supply issues, these storms are rather weak, disorganized and avoiding most areas of production, evacuations of rigs, drilling platforms and production is only precautionary.