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Diesel Prices Drop 1.8¢ to $2.565
The U.S. average retail price of diesel dropped 1.8 cents to $2.565 a gallon as oil prices remained below $50 a barrel for the third week amid questions about whether Saudi Arabia and Russia will cut oil production into 2018.
Diesel now costs 29.4 cents more than it was a year ago, when the price was $2.271 a gallon, the Department of Energy said May 8.
Regional prices for trucking’s main fuel were down across the board, with 2 cent or more declines in the Mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast and West Coast outside of California.
RELATED: World buying American diesel as fast as refiners can make it
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid Al-Falih said that producers could cut output until at least the end of the year, a topic that OPEC is expected to be discussed at a May 25 meeting.
“We need to see the OPEC/non-OPEC deal extended to 2018, otherwise there’s a risk oil prices will fall below $40,” Alexandre Andlauer, an analyst at AlphaValue SAS in Paris, told Bloomberg News. “We will have to wait two years to get a stable Brent oil price at around $55.”
Brent oil crude futures on the ICE Futures Europe exchanged ended trading on May 8 at $49.34.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed at $46.43 on May 8, down from $48.73 per barrel on May 1.
Crude’s highest price this year was $54.45 on Feb. 23 and the low point of the past year was $39.51 on Aug. 2, 2016.
At the same time, the U.S. rig count increased to 877 through May 5, up by 7 from the week before and 462 more than a year earlier, oil-field services company Baker Hughes Inc. reported.
Baker Hughes ranks No. 14 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America.
