After the 3.7 cent increase last week, diesel continued to rise, this week by 3.3 cents. Even though pricing is down from last year by 61.3 cents, the average retail price across the United States is $2.198 per gallon based on a survey of filling stations across the nation.
Diesel prices have been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year. Even though they have been small increases, some regions have seen bigger jumps in pricing than they would like. In the Midwest, prices increased by 4.4 cents, yet prices in the New England area only increased by 0.4 cents.
The average price of regular gasoline also continued its increase last week with a 2.5 cent increase to $2.162 per gallon. This is a decrease from the price of gas last year, which was 40.8 cents more than the average price right now.
With the continued battle between oil-producing countries not being able to come up with an agreement on oil production, crude oil prices skyrocketed last week, causing it to lose value on Monday. Analysts are expecting crude oil to drop as production remains too high for global demand. The reality is that production will not drop anytime soon, which should cause prices of oil to decrease in the coming future. One source that has caused the price of oil to increase recently is the oil worker strike in Kuwait. That finally came to an end this past week and oil production will increase to its normal rate of as much as 3 million barrels a day.