U.S. retail diesel and gasoline price averages reversed a monthlong string of increases last week, as diesel dipped 0.7 cent to $2.801 a gallon and gas declined 2.8 cents to $2.666, the Department of Energy reported.
Between Oct. 5 and Nov. 2, the price of each fuel jumped 22.6 cents a gallon, leaving diesel at $2.808, its highest level in nearly a year.
“The real story is that the prices of both fuels have essentially stabilized, following the stabilizing of crude oil prices,” Tancred Lidderdale, senior economist at DOE’s Energy Information Administration, told Transport Topics.
“Crude abruptly rose by more than $10 a gallon during two weeks in October and that translates into 20-to-29-cents in retail price increases once the increases work their way through the supply chain,” Lidderdale said. “Most of those retail increases did come two to three weeks after crude shot up, and there’s been little movement since.”
Crude oil closed at $69.57 on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Oct. 7 and rose to a high of $81.37 on Oct. 21, Bloomberg News reported.
“Crude oil dropped back down to the $80 a barrel range a few days after its high and has been trading in the $76 to $80-a-barrel range since,” Lidderdale said. “Retail prices likewise have remained in the same range.”
By TT News
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