Wouldn't you know it, as we are about to accept delievery of our GL320, the cost of diesel in the Washington, DC area is higher than premimun. At least, we will get the advanage of better gas mileage than gas engines.

Now that we are entering the heating season and diesel is now competing with heating oil, it shows that the market sources are at work.

Too bad, we can't get rid of some of the 18+ different blends of gas. Read an article from AAA that if we reduced the number of blends to about half, we would still achieve our EPA goals and reduce the cost of gas.

 

BS--more brands = more competition.

 

Lacks understanding of basic ecomonics. Probably thinks oil CEOs get together to set oil prices.

 

I was noticing the same thing... I'm taking delivery this week, and Diesel has gone up $.30 a gallon in most areas. Sad too, we make it all down here, and have no use for heating oil.

Even at .30 more per gallon, I'm still ahead compared to the Gas Hog.

 

I was going to sugget http://www.washingtondcgasprices.com/ until I realized they didn't have any prices on diesel in the DC area! You'll have to get as many dark-fuel-sippers together as you can and join up (for free) and start reporting diesel prices. If demand goes down at the places where the prices are so high, it might encourage them to start dropping prices. (Wishful thinking on my part - at least you'll maybe save a few pennies!)

I've found a station nearby who has it for less than premium (a little), but they have that $75-credit/$50-debit limit thing, so if I go more than 3/4 a tank down I'm re-starting it when I'm nearly done.

Good luck and enjoy ~600 miles per tank!

STP

 

Thanks STP. I have noticed that the further I get away from DC proper, the cheaper the cost of fuel.

 

If you're out on a turnpike somewhere, stop where the truckers stop. As soon as you're sure it's ULSD, fill 'er up for 2/3 the cost of in the city!

That website, by the way, seems to cover the US pretty well, though I don't know about covering diesel from cost-to-coast. But if you know where you're going to be it could be worth looking in advance at prices.

 

Low sulpher refining of diesel is the cost culprit, not cost of raw material or competition. It costs as much to make LSDF as it costs to refine 91 octane gas. And remember you get less diesel out of a barrel of light sweet crude than if you refine it just for gas, and most of this hemishere's oil is heavy with sulpher which requires addtional processing especially that from Venezuela. The feds required that 85% of all stations carry LSDF (#2)effective 1/1/07 so you should be able to find at most stations.

 

Another thing that drives the cost of diesel, is taxes. Road taxes on diesel in virtually all states are much higher that gas. I guess when they passed the taxes they wanted to stick it to the trucking industry figuring that it would not affect the average driving population. There is a Google mashup that I use for diesel prices, the address is: http://www.google.com/ig/adde?source.../local_gas.xml