Not long ago, diesel fuel prices were so outlandishly higher than unleaded, that more than a few bloggers and columnists were conjecturing whether or not there was a subliminal if not outright deliberate anti-diesel conspiracy going on between the domestic automakers and oil companies. At times, the price gap was more than $1 a gallon higher than for regular unleaded or at times, even premium.

This caused scores of automotive editors, bloggers and others to speculate on whether or not this would cause those OEs that have diesel passenger cars in development to re-think their plans and to cancel or delay those models for the North American market.

But there has been a brand, and one station in particular, that has bucked this trend for a while. Specifically the Shell station at the intersection of Crown Valley and Golden Lantern in south Orange County, California. For whatever reason, this particular station has had some of the lowest diesel prices in the area, even if their unleaded prices were higher than surrounding stations.

Just last Friday, I cruised by and saw that diesel prices were lower than unleaded by 20 cents, at $3.09 a gallon. Just this morning, as I gassed up my (regrettably) non-diesel car, they'd dropped another 30 cents to only $2.79 a gallon! Thankfully, 87 had also gone down to 2.99.

I have also noticed that other Shell stations in the area have lower-than-average diesel prices, although some do not.

Granted, in an economic climate where we've seen a barrel of oil go from close to $150, that have now dropped down to just under $70, it's anyone's guess as to where fuel prices are going to stabilize, but for those that thought the high cost-per-gallon of diesel were going to kill off its popularity, this is a glimmer of good news. After all, if it's up to 10 percent cheaper than unleaded, and gets 25-30 percent better fuel economy, that's a win-win if I ever saw one!