Brian Chase wrote:
I'm sure this has been covered before, so bear with me, but does anyone
think that diesel will go back to being cheaper than gas? Or are we doomed
to pay more from now on? Has there been some special tax applied to diesel?
Why is it so much more now?
Fed tax on gasoline seems to currently be $0.184 and on diesel $0.244 a
gallon. State by state tax rates here:
http://api-ec.api.org/filelibrary/mft070105.pdf
In PA where I buy MOST of my fuel, gas is taxed at $0.323 and diesel at
$0.392 in addition to the Fed tax so I pay 63.6 cents in federal and
state tax for every gallon of diesel I buy. That's ~13 cents more than
I'd pay in taxes for gasoline. New York's diesel tax is highest with
44.53 cents and Alaska lowest at 8 cents/gal.
No petroleum fuel will ever go back to where the prices were when oil
was $10/barrel (less than $0.25/gal for crude) as it was half a dozen
years ago. The cost of processing was the major cost then. Today the
cost of the raw crude (~$1.50/gal) is a MUCH bigger factor and diesel
has more energy so the crude fractions necessary to make the diesel cost
as much or more then the crude fractions required to gasoline.
The difference will remain closer to what it is today (diesel more
expensive) at least until the refineries learn to optimize the ultra low
sulfur diesel process and optimize refineries to meet any new government
requirements. The government is likely to continue to tax diesel at a
higher rate than gasoline.
Marshall
--
Marshall Booth (who doesn't respond to unsigned questions)
"der Dieseling Doktor" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
'87 300TD 182Kmi, '84 190D 2.2 229Kmi, '85 190D 2.0 161Kmi, '87 190D 2.5
turbo 237kmi
