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The Department of Energy said Monday the U.S. average price for retail diesel fuel dropped 4.3 cents to $2.163 per gallon, the second decline in two weeks.

Diesel had dropped by 0.6 cents the previous week, after rising 34.3 cents over the previous seven weeks to a record $2.212 on Oct. 25.

Monday's reported price was 68.7 cents higher than a year ago.

Continuing a trend in the past week, light sweet crude oil fell Monday to close at $49.05 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down from $49.61 Friday and $50.13 a week earlier.

DOE also said Monday the average U.S. retail price for regular gasoline fell 3.3 cents to $2.001 a gallon. The price is the fourth consecutive week at or above $2 a gallon and 49.7 cents higher than a year earlier.

Trucking burns an estimated 650 million gallons of diesel and 290 million gallons of gasoline each week.

The price of diesel dropped in all of its five major geographic regions. The biggest drop was 5.1 cents in the Gulf Coast region, followed closely by the Midwest, at 4.9 cents, and West Coast, which dropped 4.6 cents.

West Coast prices remained the highest in the nation, at $2.38 a gallon, while the average price in its California subregion was $2.437. The Gulf Coast region remained the lowest, at $2.144 a gallon.

Each week, DOE surveys 350 diesel-filling stations to compile a national snapshot price.

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