Why is Diesel Fuel so Much More Expensive?

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Nick1994

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Why does it cost so much more? I can find Unleaded for around $2.49 a gallon around town, but diesel fuel is around $3.29 at the cheapest, more commonly $3.39. Why is this? When the price of unleaded fuel was around $3.49 diesel was not far off, very closely priced then.
Does diesel fuel cost much more to manufacture?
Do they price it like this simply because they can?
I would think that if they priced it lower, since basically everything we buy was at some point on a truck that is powered by diesel fuel it would cost less to ship everything, which would then cost less to the consumer. I'm still getting great mpg in my TDI it just sucks it's .80-.90 more per gallon.
 
The demand for diesel for light vehicles is very low, not every station has diesel more or less about 20-30% only. Since they can only sell diesel at no more than 10-20% of gasoline and it needs separate tank and pump therefore they need to make up for it with higher profit margin.
 
Diesel has more energy, diesel supply might be tighter than gasoline in US and so on. I've also heard that refinery can't easily adjust diesel-gasoline ratio, and US refineries are gasoline oriented. Maybe demand has dropped?
 
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Demand and also the move to ULSD has increased refinig costs. When diesel was dirtier it cost much less than gasoline pretty much always.
 
The extra desulfurization of diesel is an added cost of refining it. At one point diesel was easier to refine but emmision guidelines have driven up the costs.
 
In my province diesel has been cheaper than gasoline for the past 5 years. Just changed to diesel more expensive this week and by about 40 cents a gallon.

I think it is priced the way it is because they can, commercial fleets need the diesel and will buy at high or low prices. Gasoline demand can be flexed by consumers depending on price.
 
diesel is also converted to heating oil, Hence higher demand in winter . Here in Quebec diesel is cheaper in the summer months
Cheers

Mike Z
 
(1)demand for diesel in NA is lower (compared to various EU countries) than that of light gasoline.

(2) unlike EU countries where fuel taxation on diesel is much lower to that of gasoline; here in NA: diesel doesn't get much of a tax break when compared to gasoline.

Because of these points, diesel is not that much cheaper to that of gasoline.

Q.
 
Diesel is about 8% cheaper in my area. Whether is goes up in the winter depends on how low the temps go has it is related to heating oil
 
Europe taxes diesel less than gas because they have the misguided notion that it will some how reduce Greenhouse gas emissions. So Europe sucks up all the diesel and exports gasoline to the U.S. Simple as that.
 
they are charging by the energy potential now and we export a ton of diesel daily...
 
Today in my city, 87 gasoline is $2.65 and diesel is $4.00 per gallon. A full 50% more expensive.

I'm shopping for a new 4-door hatchback right now and I was originally planning a Golf TDI. The 2015 4-dr, manual Golf TDI gets 36 MPG combined and the 2015 Focus 1.0 will probably be around 34 MPG. (The Fiesta 1.0 gets 36 MPG combined.) Diesel just doesn't make any sense to me right now.

I tow small trailers and the TDI only gains you about 75 lbs extra unbraked towing capacity. 1,400 lbs vs 1,475 lbs. (635 vs 670 kg.)
 
Originally Posted By: E365
Today in my city, 87 gasoline is $2.65 and diesel is $4.00 per gallon. A full 50% more expensive.

I'm shopping for a new 4-door hatchback right now and I was originally planning a Golf TDI. The 2015 4-dr, manual Golf TDI gets 36 MPG combined and the 2015 Focus 1.0 will probably be around 34 MPG. (The Fiesta 1.0 gets 36 MPG combined.) Diesel just doesn't make any sense to me right now.

I tow small trailers and the TDI only gains you about 75 lbs extra unbraked towing capacity. 1,400 lbs vs 1,475 lbs. (635 vs 670 kg.)


The Ecoboost engines have diesel like torque anyway.

Plus, modern diesels are just ridiculously expensive if something goes wrong. DEF systems aren't cheap either.
 
Has to do with production costs, the amount they can get from a particular barrel of oil, and yes, different types of crude have different amounts of various fuels in them. Then add taxes, fuel oil, etc and the cost varies.

Mazout is a heating oil in Europe made from crude oil. Fairly inexpensive. Less than diesel. We used it to heat our house via a burner and hot water radiators. We could have burned diesel but it was twice the cost. Probably less tax on the mazout.

Anyways good luck trying to figure that out. Let me know when you do
 
Originally Posted By: E365


I tow small trailers and the TDI only gains you about 75 lbs extra unbraked towing capacity. 1,400 lbs vs 1,475 lbs. (635 vs 670 kg.)


That TDI torque will FEEL so much better towing that trailer than the 1.0 ecoboost though. That said, my 2012 CR TDI was lemon lawed for egr failing,dpf failing, trunk leaks etc etc all at 18k miles. Great car when it worked which, in my case, wasn't often at 100%.
 
Just wait Until ULSG is mandated/ hits the mass market. the gas prices will jump accordingly, just like Diesel did a couple years back. and Diesel will likely be back cheaper than Petrol.

my
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anyway...
 
The spread between diesel and gas seems very seasonal and geographic. There are some local stations where the spread is as low as $0.30.
 
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