The weekly average retail diesel price posted by the Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration rose 3.3 cents a gallon Monday to $2.559 a gallon.
It marked the sixth consecutive week that the price has risen. The price is now at its highest level since the first weekly report of April, when it came in at $2.548 a gallon. It’s up 18.7 cents over the past six weeks.
Among the price movements in the broader market that helped contribute to the higher price:
— The 3.3-cent increase matched closely the upward movement in the commodity price for ultra low sulfur diesel on the CME commodity exchange. Since the settlement of Dec. 4 through last Friday, that market rose 3.02 cents a gallon, to $1.4369 a gallon from $1.4067. However, retail prices generally do not move in tandem with commodity prices. Their movement will inevitably be closer to the movements in wholesale prices.
— In the wholesale diesel or “rack” market, prices nationally rose to $1.576 a gallon last Friday from $1.528, an increase of 4.8 cents, according to data in SONAR. Those prices continued to increase over the weekend and stood at $1.586 a gallon by Monday.
— Diesel is rising faster than other key oil benchmarks. The spread between front-month ULSD and Brent crude oil, the world benchmark, stood at 25.7 cents a gallon Monday. That’s up about 2 cents a gallon just since last Monday. It’s also the highest since April.
More articles by John Kingston
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