Nebraska Gasoline and Diesel Prices

Price increases this week are due to tight supplies and refinery outages. The closest refinery situation is in Kansas at the Coffeyville Resources refinery. Flooding from the Verdigris River last weekend has resulted in the refinery shutting down. No official report has been released although projections are that the refinery will not return to production until the end of summer. The Coffeyville plant refines 108,000 barrels of crude oil each day. This is a daily loss of more than 2 million gallons of gasoline from our region's supply. Other supply problems are found at the BP Whiting, Indiana, refinery which has been operating at a reduced level of 200,000 barrels of crude oil each day—down from 410,000 barrels—due to a fire in March. Valero's Ardmore, Oklahoma, refinery will be down for at least another week. T he expected loss in production is 30,000 barrels per day of gasoline and 15,000 barrels per day of diesel.

Motor Gasoline

For the week of July 9, Nebraska's average gasoline price leaped 17 cents from the previous week to $3.25, which was 31 cents higher than the price at this time last year. Weekly averages in the surveyed cities ranged from $3.17 in Norfolk to $3.39 in North Platte. On July 13, Columbus reached a new record for highest average price in that city at $3.36. As of July 6, the Midwest gasoline stock level was below the normal range with 49.7 million barrels.

Diesel Fuel

This week the price of diesel fuel had risen four cents from the previous week to $2.97. According to the weekly price report, this week's state average was nine cents lower than the price at this time last year. Weekly averages in the surveyed cities ranged from $2.94 in Lincoln and Omaha to $3.01 in Kearney and North Platte. On the supply side, the Midwest distillate fuel inventory level was in the lower region of the normal range with 20.7 million barrels of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and 5.6 million barrels of low sulfur diesel fuel as of July 6.

Notes

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. Ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel has sulfur levels of 15 ppm and less while low sulfur diesel fuel ranges from more than 15 ppm to 500 ppm sulfur.

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.

A general rule of thumb:  A dollar increase in the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil price will result in a 2.5-cent increase in the gasoline price and the diesel fuel price.  Likewise, a dollar decrease in the WTI crude oil price will result in a 2.5-cent decrease in the gasoline price and the diesel fuel price.