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Why is the cost of diesel fuel exceeding that of unleaded gasoline?

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Ed asked:

Diesel fuel is only one step above #2 grade heating fuel, and requires much less refining than regular automobile gas. So, why then is it more expensive. Please, someone who can actually answer this, give me a good reason.


This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Diesel Fuel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Why is the cost of diesel fuel exceeding that of unleaded gasoline?”

  1. that is a good question…

    At one time (10-15 yrs ago), diesel was always cheaper than regular gas… About 30 cents cheaper.

    Maybe it has to do with increased commercial traffic.
    Or maybe the oil/gas companies intentionally reduced refinery capacity, in order to ship less and charge more.

  2. Sadly, it’s demand. There’s more of a demand for diesel fuel, and that’s driving the prices up. The military runs on a lot of diesel fuel, for one. The demand for gas is up, so the amount that normally gets refined as diesel, some of that has been allotted for gasoline. Between those two factors, the demand for the fuel has gotten greater, and the supply has gotten less. It’s the old addage- supply and demand. Whomever wants it the most, will pay the most. I personally am not very impressed by the high cost of diesel, since I have a small farm, and I work construction. That, and I’ve got two diesel vehicles. It’s really taking a bite out of my pocket book with the diesel being about half again higher than it should be. I can understand a mild increase, but the fact that it’s higher than gasoline is assinine.

  3. Removal of the sulphur and the paraffin start it off as both of those are in the low grade heating oil you mention, after that, as the other poster points out - demand

  4. Jet aircraft “suck” millions of fuel every day! There seems to be a priority for the “big consumers”! Before jet airplanes,- heating oil and kerosene was mere pennies per gallon! Gasoline wasn’t that bad either! When I started driving gas was 15 cents a gallon (for “regular”). If you have a “oil furnace”, you will find that fuel for that is around $2.40 or higher.

    Now about Diesel fuel, - the new “rule of thumb” appears to be BTUs, — diesel has a whole lot more BTU capacity when burned than gasoline.– Of course that goes “out the window for jet fuel”! Note though that diesel is still economical, because the fuel somewhat lubricates the combustion chamber parts as engine runs, - which makes engine go further than a gasoline engine would - (in proportion to amount of fuel burned), - Of course that is an “all things equal” comparison, diesel engine is made of heavier parts to compensate for increased compression (1,500 - to 2,200 –to 1 compression ratio. So HP per pound is smaller ratio, but well lubricated “heavier components” also last longer! The gasoline engine on the other hand, - Weighs less, and has less lubrication from fuel, so it wears a little faster. Gas engine with about 8 - 15 to one compression ratio does help on “wear and tear aspect”, but is a little less efficient in transfer of BTUs to “power” to pull vehicle! Take all these things into account, and you see it is really a tradeoff anyway!

    I have a Mazda diesel siting in back yard that has 409,000 miles on it, still runs fine, but the alternator (expensive hard to find “unique design”) is bad, and I haven’t spent the $300-500 to buy a rebuilt one to put on it! It got about 25-27 mpg!
    Same truck with gasoline engine in it gets about the same mileage, but once you get over 250,00 miles on them they generally “give out”!

    By the way I had a Mercedes diesel that hit 497,00 miles before the head went bad, ( after which I “parted” the car out and got 3 times as much for parts as I paid for the car when I bought it)! I ran it 3 years on Fuel oill (#1), - mixed with “sump drainigs” from jet ariliners. To be truthful that cost me about 5 mpg, — however the fuel oil was 26 cents and the jet fuel was free! When fuel in jet planes, about a gallon or so is removed before filliing tanks to be sure there isn’t water or debris in fuel, — this is generally thrown away, –however I got the “lineboy” to put it in a 5 gallon can every day, and I would strain it and put it in my car. When there wasn’t enough jet fuel,- I would fill it up with fuel oil! Really made my cart start good in cold weather (-30 in Wisconsin) too, and no “jelling” when driving down the road! Generally carried a couple 5 gallon cans in trunk for “traction” in snow!

  5. On commercial diesel there are more taxes than on gas. That and the powers that be know that truckers will always buy fuel…so we are a captive consumer.

    The oil companies have not built any new refineries in 30 yrs or so so keep the prices artificially raised by promoting more demand than supply can keep up with. Right now we are in a ‘panic’ based market on fuel…any little threat to supply can boost prices out of sight, with our economy based on transportation…both trucks and rail use diesel…they are calling the shots.

    For you who are not in the trucking industry, do not be taken in by higher prices for goods due to increased fuel costs…the trucker is not getting these increases, the middle man is absorbing them.

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