Prices for diesel fuel continued to drop slightly across the country on Friday, Sept. 9, though not nearly as fast as they went up after Hurricane Katrina.

ProMiles reported a national average of $2.89 per gallon on Friday, down about a penny from the day before.

Several areas, including Arizona, California, Nevada, New York and Vermont, remained above the $3 per gallon mark.

Some truck stop companies were still reporting low supplies in some areas, mostly in the Southeast. Flying J on its Web site reported low supplies at some stations in Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Travel Centers of America, meanwhile, was still rationing fuel, but only at two stations - one in Meridian, MS, and another in Matthews, MO. Both stations were limiting diesel purchases to 50 gallons per truck.

Elsewhere, refineries and oil rigs shut down by Katrina were gradually beginning to come back online, though in some cases it could still be awhile before full production resumes.

Shell Oil Co. said its Mars platform in the Gulf of Mexico might not resume production until 2006, Bloomberg reported. That field alone accounts for about 15 percent of total oil output from the Gulf.

Meanwhile, trading for light, sweet crude oil settled at $64.20 per barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday.