The price of diesel fuel at the pump increased for the second straight week, jumping a few tenths of a cent nationally, according to the latest numbers from the Energy Department.
The average price of a gallon of on-highway diesel fuel increased 0.6 cents last week, rising to $1.989 per gallon. Despite the increase, the price of diesel is still at a low point and is 94.7 cents cheaper than it was a year ago.
Prices were mixed across the country with the largest decrease in prices occurring in the Central Atlantic with a 1.3-cent drop. The largest increase in prices was in the Rocky Mountain region, gaining 1.2 cents per gallon.
Regular gasoline prices saw a considerably larger jump during the same period with an increase of 5.3 cents at the pump bringing the average to $1.783 per gallon . The price is 69 cents cheaper than in the same week a year ago.
The largest decrease in regular gasoline prices last week was a 0.7-cent drop in New England while the largest increase was a significant 11.3-cent jump in the Midwest.
Crude oil prices seemed to have stabilized in the past few weeks thanks to recent agreements by oil producing countries to freeze output while demand is so low, according to a CNN Money report.
While the fundamentals of the energy economy remain weak, the stock market took the output freeze by countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia as a sign that oil prices had bottomed out. However, demand globally is still down and even with the rebound in prices, a barrel of crude oil is around half as valuable today as it was a year ago.
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