Every little bit helps: National average retail pump prices for diesel and gasoline declined slightly again this week, according to data tracked by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Diesel dipped 8/10ths of a penny to $2.399 per gallon, 11.8 cents per gallon cheaper compared to the same week last year.
Prices declined for diesel in every region of the country except out on the West Coast, where diesel increased 2/10ths of a penny to $2.666 per gallon – though that changed to a 1/10th of a penny decrease to $2.553 per gallon with California’s prices removed from the mix.
California recorded a 1/10th increase in diesel to $2.756 per gallon EIA noted.
The agency added that the biggest dips in diesel prices for the week occurred in:
- The Lower Atlantic: down 1.2 cents to $2.323 per gallon.
- The Midwest: down 1.1 cents to $2.376.
- New England: down a penny to $2.410.
The national average retail pump price for gasoline dropped 2.1 cents to $2.202 per gallon for the week, EIA noted, which is 17.3 cents per gallon cheaper compared to the same week last year.
In terms of the global oil markets, the agency added member nations of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) earned $404 billion in net oil export revenue in 2015, which represents a 46% decline from the $753 billion OPEC earned in 2014.
EIA noted that OPEC’s decline in net oil export revenue – which is now at its lowest level since 2004 – is due to falling crude oil prices, with the monthly average Brent spot price decreasing from$112 per barrel in June of 2014 to $38 per barrel by December 2015.
Based on EIA price forecasts, which are subject to a wide range of uncertainty, OPEC revenue is expected to fall to $341 billion in 2016 before rising back to $427 billion in 2017.
Although declining crude oil prices are the “main driver” behind lower OPEC revenue since mid-2014, unplanned production outages among some OPEC members is also contributing to those lower export earnings, EIA said.
