The U.S. average price for diesel fuel rose for the ninth straight week on Sept. 18, surging another 9.3 cents to $4.633 per gallon. That means the national number is almost 84 cents higher than it was in mid-July and has moved within 34 cents of last year’s peak.
Diesel also rose for the week of Sept. 18 in every region and subregion of the country measured by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The average had risen 4.8 cents for the week of Sept. 11. Motor club AAA’s national average on Sept. 19 also increased 9.4 cents to $4.582 per gallon.
EIA’s U.S. average price for gasoline also rose for the week of Sept. 18, by 5.6 cents to $3.878 per gallon. Gas, which is used widely by consumers and pumped by many smaller commercial fleets and work truckers, is 22.4 cents above the U.S. average for that fuel of a year ago.
EIA revises its diesel estimates upward
In its Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA is forecasting that diesel will be more expensive for the rest of 2023 into 2024 than its earlier STEO had predicted. The EIA sees U.S. on-highway diesel fuel prices averaging $4.31 per gallon this year—though the U.S. mark is higher than that now—and $4.07 per gallon next year. In its previous STEO, which was released in August, the EIA projected that diesel would come in at $4.17 per gallon in 2023 on average and $3.94 per gallon in 2024.
“We raised our diesel price forecast because of higher-than-expected August diesel crack spreads (the price of a gallon of diesel minus the price of a gallon of crude oil) and our expectation for lower distillate inventories in the fall,” the EIA noted in its September STEO.
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“Announced maintenance at the Irving Oil refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, and at the Monroe Energy refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania, will reduce distillate fuel oil supplies to the East Coast.”
“Total distillate inventories in the United States have been well below average since last year,” EIA added in its latest STEO, “and we currently estimate U.S. distillate inventories will decline by about 11 million barrels in October, more than the average October draw from 2018-22 of nearly 8 million barrels, largely because of the maintenance.”
Diesel rises in all regions, subregions
Trucking’s main fuel continues to surge in every area of the U.S., in some places much more than the nation as a whole.
Diesel continues to blow up on the West Coast (historically the most expensive place for the fuel anyway) and California. In the West as a whole, the fuel rose 16 cents for the week of Sept. 18 to $5.695 per gallon. The fuel spiked 22.2 cents in the Golden State itself to well above $6, to $6.192 per gallon.
Trucking’s main fuel rose 14 cents along the Gulf Coast (the nation’s least expensive region) to $4.352 per gallon. The fuel rose 5.8 cents to $4.537 on the East Coast and climbed in the important subregions for trucking of New England (10.9 cents to $4.587), the Central Atlantic (9.7 cents to $4.748 per gallon), and Lower Atlantic (3.9 cents to $4.456).
In the Midwest, diesel rose 6.5 cents to $4.492 per gallon. In the Rocky Mountain region, it climbed 5.4 cents to $4.864.
