[thackney]

Now that Europe has gone to an ULSD (Jan 1, 2009) like we did back a couple years ago, I hope to see more balance in the pricing of the products.

The more refineries world wide making comparable products, the better the competition and resulting price.

[sitetest]

Dear thackney,

I hope I'm seeing locally the leading edge of that price competitiveness.

I didn't mind too much paying a 50% premium for my diesel, as it gets about 50% better mileage than our older car of the same model. As well, I was using premium anyway, so for me, the gap was always significantly less. And it's nice to go 500 - 600 or more miles between fill-ups.

But now, the difference is less than 20% from regular to diesel, and the difference is less than 10% from premium to diesel.

It would be nice if Americans started buying lots more diesels, since, if the number of diesels expanded over a period of years to 30% or so of the private fleet, it would reduce oil usage by about 10% or so from what our usage would have been otherwise. And although by itself it wouldn't solve all our energy problems, it would be a big help.

sitetest