Price of Diesel Slips 0.1 Cent to $1.308

The national average price of diesel fuel slipped 0.1 cent per gallon last week to $1.308, the U.S. Department of Energy reported Tuesday.

Nearly two-thirds of commercial trucks run on diesel, making the cost of the fuel very important to the trucking industry.

The average price of gasoline, the other major fuel of the trucking industry, fell a full cent to $1.387, the DOE said.

The latest price is 14 cents per gallon higher than that at the beginning of 2002, DOE’s statistics show. However, the price has only moved up 0.3 cent per gallon over the last four weeks.

For the same week of 2001, the price of diesel was $1.529.

The largest move, and only price increase over an entire geographic region, the re-port said was on the West Coast, where the price rose 0.8 per gallon to an nation-wide-high of $1.391. The jump was led by a 2.4-cent per gallon surge in California.

The over four regions the DOE divides the country into showed declines of between 0.1 cent and 0.3 cent per gallon, the report said.

Each week the DOE’s Energy Information Administration surveys about 350 filling stations nationwide to determine the average retail price for diesel.

Normally, this survey is conducted on Monday, but because of the Memorial Day holiday, the survey was conducted and released on Tuesday, but the information still reflects Monday’s diesel prices.

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