Weekly release of benchmark diesel price shifts to Tuesday morning

The Energy Information Administration will be releasing its weekly average retail diesel price data on Tuesday mornings beginning this week, ending the practice of publishing the benchmark price on late Monday afternoon.

The change was announced on the EIA’s Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update page. This week will mark the first time the new policy is in effect, so the price that would have been published late on Monday will instead be released around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

EIA’s Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update page is a compilation of the agency’s average retail price for gasoline and diesel. The data is published with a national average and several regional subcategories as well.

But it is the national average diesel price that gets the most attention, because it is the basis for most fuel surcharges in trucking and other transportation services.

In an email to FreightWaves, an EIA spokesman said the agency is making the change to give respondents to its weekly survey more time to provide their data.

“In recent years, we have experienced that some survey respondents struggle to provide the data early in the day on Mondays,” the spokesman said. “This typically delayed our completion of data collection by one and a half hours. These trends are compressing the amount of time we have for data processing and quality control. Therefore, we are adding time on Tuesday morning to ensure that the data is reliably released on time each week.”

The EIA also has been “experiencing resource constraints,” the spokesman said. “This led us to  evaluate our processes so we can ensure quality and reliability of our data.” However, the spokesman did not mention whether the changes were related to any of the reductions being overseen by the Department of Goverment Efficiency.

He added that there is no change to the methodology being used by EIA to calculate its numbers.

The change is not a pilot program that could be reversed after a period of review, the spokesman added. Moving it back to Mondays would “require additional resources to make that adjustment.”

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