Average Diesel Price Falls for First Time in Five Weeks

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he average retail price of diesel fuel declined 1.1 cents to $1.617 per gallon, the Department of Energy said Monday.

The decline followed four straight increases totaling 6 cents, according to DOE figures. Since the end of 2003, diesel is up 11.5 cents.

Trucking burns an estimated 576 million gallons of diesel a week. The price of diesel is 13.5 cents below the same week a year earlier, when the price fell from a record following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

DOE also said the average price of retail gasoline declined 1.4 cents to $1.724 per gallon. Prior to Monday, gasoline had increased nine of the past 10 weeks, coming within 0.9 cent of its all-time record high.

Gasoline is used by about one-third of commercial trucking. It is 0.4 cent lower than a year earlier.

Also Monday, the price of crude oil rose to a one-year high as oil ministers from Venezuela and Qatar said OPEC will proceed with a production cut in April, Bloomberg reported.

Crude oil for April delivery rose $1.25 to $37.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, for the biggest gain since Feb. 2 and the highest close since March 12, 2003.

The price of diesel rose in the Rocky Mountain region, but declined in DOE's other four major geographic regions. The largest decline of 4.4 cents was reported along the West Coast grouping of states, where the average price is $1.801.

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

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