mijpa

I am getting sick n tired driving by fuel stations and seeing diesel about 40cents more then gasoline!

Don't know whom to complain to {like it would matter anyways} Poor wife hears it everytime we pass the stations. Diesel is a dirty fuel! Why are we paying more then gasoline?

FAY

Due to hurricane activity in the Gulf States the refineries there had practically no petroleum output for a time. The demand for gasoline caused the price to go up as gasoline stocks were depleted and other refineries felt the pressure trying to keeping up with the demand. Finally with insufficient crude available to refine into gasoline they started to use diesel fuel stocks to refine into gasoline. Now, when there is more crude available to produce into gasoline the price of gasoline is starting to fall. Unfortunately, diesel fuel stocks were lowered and are now in demand and it resulted in diesel prices inflating. Time will tell if the diesel fuel prices come down into a normal relationship with the price of gasoline when the refineries get ahead of the gasoline demand and start to produce more diesel fuel. That is what I was told. It sounds plausible as an excuse to gouge diesel users for a time.

P.J

By "normal relationship" in regards to gas vs. diesel prices, do you mean back to the way it makes SENSE?? That is, where diesel is cheaper than 87 Octane?

Gosh I hope!

drew03

gas is 2.01 here now but diesel is 2.45 i guess thats better then 3.29

timcasbolt

One very important fact to keep in mind: Retail fuel prices are NOT based on cost. It is market pricing, which means the more you want it, the more it will cost.

mijpa

WOW! That can be pretty scary. Considering Diesel trucks are a what more and more people are buying.

Bobcat698

48 cents difference here.. Its coming down though!

Boatnik

It depends on which station I go to in this two horse town. Two stations are running 30 cents higher on diesel than regular. But one station is running forty cents higher than those two. I don't see how they stay open. Exxon ain't that good!

FAY

Thursday, November 10, 2005

ENERGY FUTURES

Warm temperatures cool volatile oil market

The Associated Press
NEW YORK

Oil prices fell Wednesday to their lowest level in more than three months, settling below $59 US a barrel after the U.S. government said supplies of oil and gasoline rose.

"The market is still probing the downside," said oil broker Tom Bentz of BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York.

Warmer-than-usual weather in the U.S. northeast and midwest in recent days has helped to bring prices down from late August highs above $70 a barrel, and Bentz said crude futures could fall to the $55 a barrel level. However, the first cold spell could put a stop to the downward momentum, he said.

Light sweet crude futures for December delivery declined by 78 cents to settle at $58.65 on July 22.

Gasoline futures fell by 1.1 cent to close at $1.5513 a gallon, while heating oil futures rose by 1.11 cent to $1.7896 a gallon.

In its weekly report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said crude-oil inventories rose 4.5 million barrels to 323.6 million barrels in the week ending Nov. 4 from a week earlier.

Crude stocks are about 13 percent higher than they were a year ago.

Gasoline inventories rose by 4.2 million barrels to 201.1 million barrels - nearly two percent lower than year-ago levels.

U.S. inventories of distillate fuel, which includes diesel and heating oil, slipped by 100,000 barrels to 120.8 million barrels.

The question on oil traders' minds now is whether heating-oil supplies, after dropping for seven straight weeks, can catch up with growing demand going into winter.

"It could actually get cold, and it could change the momentum of this entire market in the next couple weeks. Heating oil supplies are falling at a time when they should be building," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.

Nymex natural gas for December delivery fell 12.4 cents to $11.669 per million British thermal units on Wednesday.

belfert

Diesel is still 60 to 80 cents a gallon more expensive than gasoline here in Minnesota.

Our prices are not helped by mandatory 2% biodiesel blending that kicked in last month.

Brian Elfert

Rare1

It could get cold? Does a bear crap in the woods? Heating oil supplies are falling. They know demand rises in the winter, why don't they plan for it? It seems like they deliberately create a shortage so they can raise the price.

Rare1

I don't think so. A 42 gallon barrel of crude yields 20 gallons of gasoline and 10 gallons of diesel/heating oil. The remainder of the barrel is all the other petroleum products we need. I don't think there's any gasoline left in that 10 gallons of diesel. But if there were, given the cost of refining and the profit they can make on diesel, why re-refine it?