Average retail prices for both diesel and gasoline increased yet again across every region of the U.S. this week, according to data tracked by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), though prices still remain well below the levels reached during the same time period last year.
The national average retail price for diesel jumped up 6 cents to $2.357 per gallon, noted EIA, though hat is 55.7 cents cheaper per gallon compared to the same week in 2015.
Diesel prices were up in every region of the country, with the largest price spikes occurring on the West Coast:
- West Coast without California: up 7.7 cents to $2.502 per gallon
- West Coast including California: up 6.7 cents to $2.597
- California: up 5.8 cents to $2.673 (the highest price for diesel by region in the U.S. this week)
- The Gulf Coast: up 7.6 cents to $2.233 (the cheapest U.S. price for diesel by region this week)
- New England: up 6.3 cents to $2.411
The national average retail price for gasoline increased 5.8 cents to $2.30 per gallon this week, EIA said, though that is 47.4 cents cheaper per gallon compared to the same week in 2015.
The largest regional price spikes for gasoline this week occurred in:
- The Midwest: up 10.2 cents to $2.28 per gallon
- The Gulf Coast: up 7.7 cents to $2.064
- The Rocky Mountains: up 5.7 to $2.30
In other energy-related news, recent research by the EIA indicates that the U.S. remained the world's top producer of petroleum and natural gas in 2015.
The agency added that the U.S. has now been the world's top producer of natural gas since 2011 and the world's top producer of petroleum since 2013. On top of that, the U.S. produced more than twice the petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons as Saudi Arabia produced last year, despite a 3% increase in Saudi Arabia oil production in 2015.
EIA noted that despite low crude oil prices and a 60% drop in the number of operating oil and natural gas rigs, U.S. petroleum supply still increased by 1 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2015, while U.S. natural gas production increased by 3.7 billion cubic feet per day, with nearly all of the increase occurring in the eastern portion of the country.
Yet oil production is expected to fall in the U.S. this year and next relative to 2015, EIA said. In its May Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the agency projected that U.S. petroleum and other liquid fuels production is expected to decline from 15 million b/d in 2015 to about 14.5 million b/d in both 2016 and 2017.
