As I’ve been reading alot lately the switch to low sulphur diesel hasn’t made much noise to diesel drivers, but it has to refineries and vendors. The switch is fairly involved for refineries and they are not able to pump out as much diesel. Doug Aron, vice president of corporate finance for Frontier Oil Corp said, “The process to make ultra-low-sulfur diesel took us several years of planning, and the actual construction can’t just happen overnight.” This has led to more fluctuations and higher prices for diesel all around the country. In some parts of Wyoming they are even having to ration out sales to 50-70 gallons a customer, and while that would be no problem for my Jetta. When you have a semi that can usually hold 300 gallons that adds time and other expenses to their trip.
Hopefully we’ll see prices come back down in a month or two as things start to settle, refineries Katrina knocked out come back online, and the transition to ULSD is completed.