Diesel prices hit a fresh two-year high on Monday following the release of the weekly Department of Energy's Weekly Retail On-Highway Diesel Price summary, rising 3.4 cents to $3.231 a gallon.

It's now 48.3 cents higher than it was a year ago.

Across the Nation

Diesel was up an average 3.4 cents a gallon from last week, with the highest difference recorded in California at 5.1 cents. The Rocky Mountain states got off the lightest with a modest 0.9 cent increase from the previous week.

Here's how diesel prices looked across the nation on Monday, according to the DOE.

East Coast 3.248 up 3.4
New England 3.248 up 4.2
Central Atlantic 3.362 up 3.6
Lower Atlantic 3.187 up 4.3
Midwest 3.205 up 3.0
Gulf Coast 3.163 up 3.1
Rocky Mountain 3.285 up 0.9
West Coast 3.361 up 4.0
California 3.403 up 5.1

Crude Prices

OPEC oil ministers met over the weekend in Ecuador, and said they keep production quotas unchanged. OPEC's remarks seemed to assure traders that higher outputs would not affect supply, and the higher prices would likely hold, at least in the near term. True to form, prices bounced back on Monday from a soft closing on Friday.

"The ministers generally love existing prices," energy consultants Cameron Hanover said in a report. "Some insiders have hinted at a quota increase if crude oil prices break above $100 a barrel."

Coming off a high of 89.38 on Dec. 3 after topping $90 in midday trading, oil had slipped to $87.79 per barrel Dec. 10 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But following the OPEC announcement, Crude oil rose on Monday, gaining 82 cents to settle at $88.61 a barrel in New York, Bloomberg reported.

DOE's Weekly Retail On-Highway Diesel Prices