I’ve said this before that when gas prices stabilize - diesel prices come down. Well there are now several places near where I work and live that sell diesel and premium at the SAME price ($2.35). Anyone else seeing this where you live??
Same in DFW, both at about $2.00/gallon.
Still about ten cents more here in the Kansas City area, compared to regular unleaded. That is much less than the 40 cents differential earlier this winter.
At least they’re stabilizing…A year ago it was about a 30% difference. Now the difference is less then 5%.
Diesel is still 30 - 40 cents higher than premium here.
$1.96 here in Canton, GA as of last night.
transman
In central VA, diesel is about 50 cents a gallon more that 87 octane gas and about 25 cents a gallon more than premium.
It amazes me that the price of home heating oil(untaxed diesel) is so close to the price of road diesel currently. I am very happy paying $2.00/gall for heating oil but some places are on par with gas station diesel locally.
I agree. I am not a big diesel user (small amounts of farm diesel only), so I am not affected by the prices as much as others. A drop of 25 cents has occurred in less than two weeks. It dropped 15 cents first, and then earlier this week, ten more cents.
I assume that with the end of winter near, diesel and fuel oil prices went down because overall demand in my part of the midwest went down. We have had warmer overall temps in Feb and far fewer users of heating oil, so it is not unusual to see a drop in Feb/Mar.
Some of this has to do with the ultra low sulfur diesel needing better refined and an increased demand for diesel. The Marathon plant in Canton, OH recently had quite a few million dollars ($170 mil) put into it to increase their capacity.
http://rccanton.com/Files/ULSD%20Fact%20Sheet7-8.pdf
https://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/2849413
Diesel used to be cheaper for a number of reasons. Less refining, and in North America gasoline was the most sought after part of a barrel of crude. The situation is different now. The European emphasis on diesel, and the very tough refining requirements have resulted in a wordwide shortage of diesel. US refineries defintely cannot produce the amount needed here, and when they cut down on gasoline during a recession, they also cut back on diesel.
The refining industry here forecasts a continuing shortage of high quality diesel until US refineries gear up for the additional need. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon; you don’t build a refinery to produce diesel only! And gasoline demand in the US is flat. The US imports any shortage from overseas where there are many export refineries; the Arabs and others have discovered there is more money in selling the finished product than the raw materials.
So, if you buy a disel car, the best you can hope for is price parity with regular gasoline.
That’s one theory. The US shipped very very little Diesel overseas. Diesel production in the US stays in the US. Prices for Diesel for the past 20 years has always fluctuated with the cost of gas. When gas prices stabilize diesel prices stabilize. Just 3 years ago Diesel prices were LOWER then regular gas. Now with the new ultra-low sulfur diesel just recently introduced that may add to the cost of Diesel. But gas prices are still at a influx. So lets wait and see.
Diesel cars are still cheaper to operate then a gasoline car. Gas mileage increase is 20-50% HIGHER in a Diesel. When gas was $3.50/gal…Diesel would have to be $5.00 in order for it to be more expensive. If the Diesel 4-runner or Pathfinder offered in Europe was offered here…I’d buy one. Same HP…MORE Torque…50% INCREASE in gas mileage.
Or the Toyota Hilux. Hey, I’ll buy a Toyota if they sold those out here.
We do ship a fair amount of diesel overseas. The US exported an average of 5-10 million barrels a month before last year, last year was 10-22 million barrels a month, averaging about 0.5 million barrels a day for the year. I imagine the volumes will be back to the earlier averages this year.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mdiexus1m.htm
Diesel fuel, jet fuel and heating oil are called “middle distillates”; they come from the middle part of the barrel of crude. Gasoline, naphtha, aviation gasoline are the top end, while residual oil (heavy fuel oil), asphalt and tar are the bottom end.
The wordwide demand for diesel is driving the pressure on middle distillates, but diesel is subject to a much more rigorous refining process, so it should sell for more than furnace oil. Since diesel now sells for a premium over gasoline, it is no surprise that heating oil is about the same as regular gas.
In the final analyis, it is a matter of supply and demand. In the early days of the oil industry, lamp oil was the main prodcut (since whale oil was becoming scarce), it was similar to heating oil. There was a very nasty by-product called “gasoline” which was highy volatile and refiners did not know what to do with, so it was just burned off! Then came the autombile, and the rest is history.
What is “Diesel gas” and why would anyone car about the price?
Diesel fuel is about 10 cents more than premium in MD. But I wouldn’t really call prices stable. Gas prices wend down precipitously in the fall and early winter. They rose a lot recently. I’d say that it is the big yo-yo in gas prices that make it and diesel so close these days.
Good call Mike!
I hadn’t really taken notice of this situation until you posed this question, but I checked today, and I found that premium gas and diesel fuel are selling for the same price–$1.99/gallon in my area of Central NJ.
Fortunately for me Mike, I burn regular!
Here in Puerto Rico diesel is about $2.85 a gallon with no sign of dropping. Hurts the in-laws with there diesel powerplant.