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August 9, 2000 10:36 AM, EDT

The national average retail price of diesel fuel dropped for the fourth consecutive week. But the stage appears to be set for the price to bounce back up in the next few weeks and a partial cause could be problems experienced by coal-fired electrical plants.

	Fuel Prices
	Week of July 31:
	source	price		change
	DOE	140.8		-1.6
	Comdata*	139.4		-1.6
	OPIS self-serve*	140.6		-1.6
	OPIS wholesale*	82.0		-3.6
	*Comdata and OPIS figures are for the week of July 22-28. Click here for more fuel prices.
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On July 31, the diesel fuel price, as reported by the Energy Information Administration, stood at $1.408 per gallon, down 1.6 cents from the previous week and 4.5 cents below the price on July 3.

However, an unexpected 9-million-barrel plunge in U.S. inventories sent the price of crude up 2% after it had been reported slumping throughout July.

The price of diesel usually tracks changes in the price of crude by about a week.

For the full story, see the Aug. 7 print edition of Transport Topics. .