Diesel Price Up 0.3 Cent to $1.305

After three weeks of declines, most of the nation saw the average price of diesel fuel rise again, pushing the national average to $1.305 a gallon – 0.3 cent higher than last week, the Department of Energy said Monday.

The average price of gasoline also rose last week, adding 0.2 cent per gallon to stand at $1.395.

Though most commercial trucks run on diesel fuel, some do use gasoline-powered engines, making the cost of both fuels important to trucking.

The average price, as measured by the DOE’s Energy Information Administration’s survey of 350 fueling stations, was calculated from regional prices that ranged from $1.275 per gallon along the Gulf Coast to $1.387 on the West Coast.

The West Coast, the only region where the price declined, saw a drop of 0.3 cent per gallon, driven by a 0.7 drop in the subregion of California.

he most significant increase was along the East Coast, where the price rose 0.6 cent to $1.313, buoyed by increases of 0.8 and 0.6 cent in the Lower Atlantic and Central Atlantic areas, respectively.

Pressure on the crude oil market seemed to be subsiding as the Middle East crisis began to cool, news services reported Monday. Especially in the wake of Iraq’s decision to resume exporting oil, ending a protest of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian-controlled lands.

During the trading day in New York, the price of a barrel of oil fell by nearly $1 to $25.62 a barrel, the biggest one-day decline since April 12, Bloomberg reported. A report by the American Petroleum Institute said that Iraq is the No. 5 supplier of crude oil to the United States.

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