Fairbanks diesel hit a record $6.70 a gallon this weekend

Diesel in Fairbanks hit $6.70 a gallon Saturday, the highest AAA has ever recorded in the metro. A year ago it was $4.17.

That is the price that moves everything else. Diesel runs the freight trucks, the heavy equipment and the generators that keep Interior communities supplied and lit, so a record at the pump works its way into the cost of nearly everything hauled up the highway.

Regular gasoline is climbing too, but more slowly — $5.05 in Fairbanks, against $4.73 a month ago and $3.95 a year ago. Diesel over the same year rose more than $2.50.

It isn't only Fairbanks. AAA's statewide diesel average of $6.62 and its national average of $6.49 both set records the same day. National regular is at $4.48, up from $3.20 a year ago.

The utility side of that bill has already come due once. At a House Finance Committee hearing in April, Rep. Zack Fields described what the previous winter had cost Fairbanks ratepayers when Golden Valley Electric Association leaned on diesel generation: the utility "had to burn a bunch of diesel at a very significant cost increase to interior consumers."

One caveat on all of these figures. AAA builds its averages from posted prices at reporting stations along the road system, so individual Fairbanks stations run above and below the metro number — and communities off the highway don't appear at all. As the analytics firm Gasolytics puts it, "real posted prices of $7-10/gal along remote roads are invisible to the statewide number, which tracks the road system and population centers."