Nebraska Gasoline and Diesel Prices

In their report, "This Week in Petroleum", the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported the retail gasoline price declines during the seven-week period between August 7 and September 25 for nine individual states and the national average. Nebraska wasn't one of the nine states that EIA chose, but a comparison is made here. The graph below depicts the drop in the average retail price for regular gasoline between August 7, 2006, and September 25, 2006 for the nine states, Nebraska, and the nation. Minnesota had the largest reported decline of 90 cents, and Washington's prices had the smallest decline with 31 cents per gallon. Nebraska ranks third with a decline of 78 cents, which is 18 percent larger than the 66-cent decline of the national average. According to EIA, a likely reason for smaller price declines in some areas than in other areas appears to be local supply and demand conditions. Bottomline--even though there is a difference in price declines, everyone has seen a hefty drop in retail gasoline prices in a short length of time.

For the week of September 25, Nebraska's average gasoline price fell ten cents per gallon from the previous week to $2.26, which was 52 cents lower than the price at this time last year. This week, average prices in surveyed cities ranged from $2.14 in Grand Island to $2.39 in North Platte. Prices in surveyed cities ranged from 7 to 14 cents per gallon lower than last week. As of September 22, the Midwest gasoline stock level was near the upper boundary of the normal range with 52.4 million barrels.

Nebraska's average diesel price declined 13 cents to $2.63 per gallon. According to the weekly price report, this week's state average was 17 cents lower than the price at this time last year. Weekly averages in the surveyed cities ranged from $2.56 in Norfolk to $2.67 in Kearney. Prices in surveyed cities ranged from 5 to 18 cents per gallon lower than last week. On the supply side, the Midwest distillate fuel inventory level was in the normal range with 24.5 million barrels of diesel fuel as of September 22.

Regular unleaded gasoline is regular unleaded motor gasoline with an 87 to 88 octane. Diesel fuel is fuel used for internal combustion in diesel engines.

An archive of this report, average gasoline prices for each month, average diesel prices for each month, and historical weekly prices are available for diesel and three grades of motor gasoline.

Source: Nebraska Energy Office, Lincoln, NE.

This report was updated on September 29, 2006.
Typically, there is one week between updates.