U.S. Retail Diesel Price Drops 5.7 Cents to $2.259

he average national price of retail diesel fuel dropped 5.7 cents to $2.259 a gallon, the Department of Energy said Monday.

Gasoline prices also tumbled from four weeks of records, dropping 4.3 cents to $2.237 a gallon, DOE said. Gasoline had hit an all-time high of $2.28 last Monday.

The diesel decline follows three months of soaring prices in which trucking’s main fuel rose 38.2 cents, hitting all-time record highs in the past four weeks, DOE figures showed.

The declines followed two weeks of receding crude oil prices, which generally lead to lower pump prices. Light sweet crude oil futures fell from a record $58.28 a barrel April 4 to close at $50.35 Monday, Bloomberg reported.

iesel is still 53.5 cents higher than this time last year. With the trucking industry burning about 650 million gallons each week, that’s about $321 million more in fuel costs this year than the same week last year.

Retail prices declined in all regions of the country, DOE said, led by the Gulf Coast, which fell 7.1 cents to $2.18, and Midwest, which fell 6.9 cents to $2.194.

California and West Coast truckers also saw some relief from their prices, the nation’s highest. California’s average fell 4.3 cents to $2.582 a gallon, while the West Coast region fell 3.1 cents to $2.554.

Each week DOE surveys 350 diesel-filling stations to compile a national snapshot price.