Who cares about gasoline, what the heck is going on with DIESEL!?!?. I'm paying $3.90 a gallon for something that takes less processing to make than gas! Diesel is now between $.80 and $.90 more than Reg. Unleaded and only a few short years ago it was (and for a long time has been) about $.20 less than Reg. Unleaded?
My opinion is that some of that price imbalance has to do with biodiesel.
There was an article earlier this morning that Germany was increasing taxes on biodiesel because sales of petroleum diesel were plummeting, and thus they were losing tax revenue. I wonder if something of the sort is going on here, as well?
I've heard from friends in the wholesale fuel business that our limited refining capacity is now dedicated almost totally to gasoline production, and that we are importing refined diesel--at a higher price, of course.
While I'm not an expert, I don't play one on TV, and have never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, I seem to recall reading that a year or two ago new federal regulations went into effect requiring very low sulphur levels in diesel, which requires a bunch of extra refining. I used to do some occassional work for a freight company, and remember the owner saying that the switch was going to force him to raise his rates quite a bit, because the cost of fuel was going to skyrocket.
And I guess it did... I was seriously thinking about going from a Toyota Corolla to a VW Jetta TDI diesel a few years ago (for the additional milage), but with the rise in diesel prices, it's no longer really a viable option for me.
Mark
The high diesel prices are the product of a booming economy. Almost every tangible good that is marketed in this country makes it to market on trucks. The rest travels by diesel powered locomotives. Take a look at any interstate highway in the country. You'll see that about 50% of the vehicles on the road are truckers and those trucks aren't empty. They're full of goods headed for the market. This is up sharply from just a few years ago. Look at how the trucking companies are advertising for drivers. I make this comparison because I spent the better part of 18 years traveling for a living and I tend to notice such things. I also recently did a cross country trip from Tennessee to Colorado and back. There were a LOT of truckers on the road. That's where all the diesel is going......and why the price is so high.....btw, I drive an F-250 turbo diesel.....
There’s a tremendous amount of diesel fuel being transported to the active military theaters in both Afghanistan and Iraq, in support of the WOT. While that may be a small element of the overall price structure, it can’t be ignored.
Same thing is manifest in the market for plywood and some other construction materials...
The EPA has new sulphur standards for Diesel (D-2). For now, most refineries are purchasing and importing low sulphur diesel and re-refining it to ultralow sulphur diesel. Of course our wise and wonderful government is putting a stop to that practice (they don’t want that extra sulphur in the USA). In the meantime Russia’s Lukoil has pretty much cornered the ultralow sulphur diesel market along the eastern seaboard. Much, if not most of the Diesel produced here in the USA is for off road and marine use only.
Thank your EPA. With the introduction of Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel requirements, diesel became more expensive than premium gasoline in most place, most of the time.
National Clean Diesel Campaign
http://www.epa.gov/diesel/
You can see below when the requirement kicked in:
Weekly U.S. Distillate 0-15 ppm Sulfur Production
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wd0tp_nus_24.htm