Diesel prices may have hit a bottom for now in the futures market, but the average weekly retail diesel price posted its 10th consecutive decline Monday.
The price, reported by the Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration, dropped 2.9 cents a gallon to $3.526. Over that 10-week span, the price has fallen 33.9 cents.
That benchmark price, used for most fuel surcharges, is about $1.10 a gallon less than it was a year ago.
Meanwhile, the price of ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) on the CME commodity exchange, after reaching on Sept. 10 its lowest settlement since December 2021, before Russia invaded Ukraine, has staged something of a rebound.
The Sept. 10 settlement was $2.058 a gallon. It rose the next two days to settle Thursday at $2.1188. It bounced up and down the next two days, settling Monday at $2.0958, just under 4 cents more than the recent low settlement last Tuesday.
The decline in retail prices reflected in the 10-week decline is chasing after a fall in ULSD on CME that took the price from a settlement of $2.348 per gallon on Aug. 26 to the recent low last Tuesday.
The only significant bullish news in the market continues to be coming out of Libya, where a continuing and long-standing power struggle between different geographic factions has led to a significant cut in the country’s production and exports. Reports late Monday said Libyan exports last week were 314,000 barrels per day, down from 468,000 a week earlier. Before the most recent sharp drop, exports were more than 1 million barrels a day.
Beyond that, bearishness prevails. Data from the Intercontinental Exchange on trader positions was described in one news report as showing investors were “more bearish than ever,” based on the number of short positions that financial investors had taken in the Brent crude market.
UBS, the big Swiss bank, was reported Monday to have revised downward its oil forecasts for the next two years. Its previous estimate for Brent in the fourth quarter was $83 a barrel. It is now $75.
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