June 2, 2004 4:00 PM, EDT

Average Price of Diesel Declines 1.5 Cents to $1.746

Gasoline Falls From Record Highs

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he average price of retail diesel fuel dropped 1.5 cents per gallon to $1.746, the second straight weekly decline, the Department of Energy reported Tuesday.

DOE also said the average retail price of regular gasoline fell 1.3 cents from a record high to $2.051 per gallon.

Gasoline increased 4.7 cents last week and had set a record in eight of the previous nine weeks, DOE said. Prices are up 39% this year.

Meanwhile, the current price of diesel was 32.3 cents higher than a year earlier.

The combined 1.7-cent decrease over the past two weeks would save truckers $3.40 on a 200-gallon purchase at retail pumps. The trucking industry burns an estimated 576 million gallons of diesel fuel each week.

Regionally, diesel plummeted 9.3 cents to $2.105 along DOE's West Coast grouping of states, which followed a 5.2-cent dip the week before.

And although not nearly as steep, diesel declined in DOE's four other major geographic regions of the nation.

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