The price of diesel fuel hit an all-time high Friday as wars on two continents and a global refinery shortage combined with higher seasonal demand to push prices upward.The average nationwide price was $5.85 per gallon, up from $5.78 on Thursday, according to AAA’s gas price tracker.Diesel prices began their monthslong rise in late February, with the launch of the Iran war and the soaring oil prices that came with it.More recently, however, those rising prices have been sustained by an escalation in the fourth year of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia has long been the world’s second-largest exporter of diesel fuel after the United States.But Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries have cut into the country’s diesel production.Facing a potential domestic supply shortage, Russia recently extended a diesel export ban through the end of September, straining what were already critically low global diesel reserves.
Russia’s abrupt exit from the world’s diesel export market has been a boon, however, for U.S.refiners, whose diesel products now fetch even higher prices.
America’s total diesel exports hit an all-time high last month as the world scrambled to adjust to the loss of Russia’s supply.Diesel also faces higher seasonal demand that is compounding the effects of the supply shortages.
Around the world, farmers rely on diesel fuel to power the machines they use for both harvesting and planting.Meanwhile, colder temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere will also create higher demand for refined distillate fuels — the energy category that includes diesel.Taken together, those forces are increasingly putting diesel prices on a path apart from the rest of the global oil markets.For U.S.
consumers, high diesel prices are likely to translate into higher costs for virtually any goods they purchase.Diesel powers most major freight transport, from boats to trains to trucks, and those higher input costs are eventually passed along in r...