Why is Diesel more expensive than Gas?

Well, for one thing it's all low sulfur, which incurs additional
processing expense. And of course the oil markets are just
nuts, with little rationality [other than supplies are doomed]
involved.
.
_H*

 

Hi Priusuk,

I am no expert, but there is more pretroleum in Diesel, than gasoline, and with petroleum peaking near $115 / barrel, Diesel feedstock fraction is more money.

While Diesel is a byproduct, petroleum byproducts are used for a myriad of reasons. I imaging Diesel is the feedstock for many of these products , mostly plastics, fertilizer and chemicals.

Diesel itself takes less refining than gasoline, but as Hobbit mentions desulfurization is an additional process.

And there is the management/economics side of things. Diesel could be refined into gasoline with additional processing. So, there is more demand for Diesel, as a fuel, and as a feedstock. Trains, large road vehicles, ships and some power plants run on Diesel. These are very large users of fuel, with close coupling of fuel energy realization to profit. Which means if they use gasoline, they go so far, and diesel so far, so they buy equipment and pay for whichever fuel has the edge of energy content to cost at the time.

Diesel has 113 % the energy content of gasoline. Diesel engine extracts more of that energy as work too. So, say a Diesel is 30 % efficient, and the gasoline engine is 15 % (extreme metro traffic bound driving) efficient in the driving cycle, then the work provided by the Diesel is 226 % as much as the gasoline. And so people will be willing to pay up to 226 % as much for the Diesel. Of course not everybody drives in slow and go, sub 20 mph cycles all the time. And the actual ratio of work realized from Diesel versus Gasoline is somewhat less than 2. But this illustrates the point. People do not buy fuel, they buy transportation. And whatever gives them the most transportation for the money, will be demanded. That is, a diesel train may get a big demand over a bunch of people in cars, because its cheaper. And people with diesel cars are in the demand mix for that fuel.

 

There is more or less a fixed ratio of petroleum products from any given volume of crude. It varies somewhat by the type of crude, and how much cracking the refiners are willing to do, but think of it as fixed for this discussion. Right now diesel fuel is in big demand. It is the fuel of choice in for all big engines, and a fuel of choice in many parts of the world for automobiles. In addition, diesel and heating oil are the same product, and we have had a long, cold winter. That makes the demand for diesel high and the reserves low. As was also mentioned, the U.S. now requires diesel fuel to be low sulfur, which raises the cost. All of these factor into the high cost of diesel fuel.

Tom

 

Supply and demand, people seem willing to pay the extra. If no one bought it the price would drop.

 

Hey Pat

Is diesel more expensive than petrol in Australia? I haven't been to Australia (yet), but when we were in NZ back in 2004, diesel was about $0.20 per liter cheaper than unleaded petrol. It seemed that small (by US standards) trucks and vans were mostly diesel powered.

Here in Calif. diesel is about $4.10 or so / gal, unleaded gas is about $3.60 despite Malorn's prediction in another thread.

 

There was an article in last months Car & Driver talking about this. I am not a petrochemist!

Evidently there are two (common) but different ways of refining crude. We use one method, Europe uses another.

The two methods give two differing splits of gas vs diesel from a barrel of crude. If I remember correctly their method gives more diesel, while our method creates more gasoline. This would make some sense as to the relative prices here and there.

Go find the issue at your library for a better (much) read.

 

Malorn is a goose.
Diesel was less than petrol 10 years ago but now it is dearer. The difference varies over the week. Last I saw standard unleaded was about $1.40/L, premium unleaded $1.45/L, and diesel $1.60/L.
That is in $AU which is around 92cUS currently.
We have cheap fuel compared to the UK though.

Australian made cars and utes only come in petrol powered form currently but diesels are on the way so they say. Toyota sell quite a few diesel utes and 4x4s but they sell a few petrol ones too. Diesel cars are starting to filter in from Europe and Asia in some numbers now.

 

man, those Holden Ute's look sweet....they're slowly starting to bring some Holden cars into the US as Pontiac's like the new G8 is just a rebadged Holden Statesman....or is it the Caprice? well whatever

ok sorry to get off topic, but i've wondered the same thing about diesel being more expensive?

 

I was down the port on Wednesday and they were loading them on the ship for the US. The G8 is a Holden SS Commodore, the statesman is bigger again. You do know the Pontiac GTO from 2004 to 2006 was a Holden Monaro?

and here is the Monaro, my son said I have to include it in this post because the GTO is ugly.


Now we can get back on topic.

These are examples of cars that don't run on diesel.
(there, that ought to do it)

 

OFT :
holdens are german "opels" ( vauxhall in the UK ) only with bigger engines and some small redesigns
so the Pontiac GTO from usa was a german car
Home - Calibra Wiki - Vauxhall, Opel and Holden Information and Technical Resource

OT:
diesel needs to be more expensive then petrol in the EU to
so people wil sop driving them

 

Hi Priusuk2008,

I am saying that if people get more transportation per dollar (pound, Euro - whichever) using Diesel fuel, they will buy Diesel Cars, or use Diesel Trains. Which wil raise demand for Diesel fuel. Then by supply-and-demand the price will go up. But the demand is limited by the performance of the gasoline car. If the Diesel price went up to a point where the gasoline car transportation was cheaper, people would avoid Diesel.

Then I gave a scenario where Diesel in inner city driving provides up to twice the transportation per gallon. So, then if that was the only transportation people were buying, one could see Diesel rise to twice the cost of gasoline, and the people using the Diesel transportation would still be spending less than gasoline transportation (unless you drive a Prius). The reason for this is the low power/idle difference between Diesel and Gasoline engines. Diesel engines scale back its fuel consumption dramatically at idle, where Gasoline engines do not. Diesel engines do not have throttle's, so at partial load, there is less pumping loss than a Gasoline engine.

Diesel has both more fuel energy, and the engines provide more work than Gasoline engines in low power applications.

The Hybrid concept addresses these problems of Gasoline engines by first running the engine at a higher more efficient power, and then just turning the engine off as the car runs along on battery. But there is still the cost of converting engine power to battery power. What makes the Prius competitive with Diesel cars is the variable speed nature of the transmission, the 13:1 expansion ratio Atkison engine, and brake/downhill regenerative energy recovery.

The Prius then will act to keep Diesel costs lower than my 2:1 cost scenario. Because it will reduce Diesel demand.

None of this considered the tax structure of these two fuels there. Which I believe favors Diesel in most of the EU, not sure if that is true in the UK however.

 

Wrong.
Holdens are Holdens made in Elizabeth, Adelaide, South Australia and Fisherman's Bend in Melbourne, Victoria. The engines are imported from USA for 6 and 8 cylinder Holden Commodores and associated models.

The Calibra was sold here for a short time with a Holden badge but was unsuccessful. Some Holden models come from Europe but more are now coming from Asia. Sorry that wiki is way out of date.

The SS Commodore and Monaro is/were sold in the UK as Vauxhall and Chev. A large number of Holden Statesman and Caprice models are sold in the Middle East badged as Chevrolet.

 

1. As for diesel being a "byproduct", anything the refineries have too much left over from refining/cracking a barrel of crude oil is usually referred to as a "byproduct" by some. In the beginning it was gasoline. Later it was diesel/heating oil. Currently, all the products are in such high demand there are no "byproducts". If there is too much of one vs another it may be trucked to where the opposite it true.

2. The retail price you pay reflects supply and demand mostly (believers in conspiracy will ignore this of course).

3. Be aware, diesel is subsidized in some countries for farmers, so it could be less expensive than gasoline.

4. Diesel contains more energy than gasoline and could be priced higher because of that in some places.

5. If you have a "carbon tax" diesel will have a higher proportion of it than gasoline as it contains about 10% more carbon.

But it's mostly supply and demand. Now more than ever, most goods are shipped using diesel fuel (large trucks or lorries instead of trains), increasing demand.

 

In the old days (decades ago) diesel used to be cheaper than gas.

Now there is much more demand for diesel, I.E. consumer cars have been added to the traditional diesel users. Demand goes up....so does the price.

Now diesel is more expensive than gas. Because.....they can charge more and get it. Everything is trucked everywhere and trucks use diesel too.

 

And the extra cost of fuel will be added on to everything that is trucked everywhere which is - everything. :doh: