Diesel Breaks Its All-Time Record as EIA's National Average Tops $5.96 a Gallon

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's national average on-highway diesel price hit $5.967 a gallon in its report published Sept. 9, according to EIA's Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update — up 36.8 cents, or roughly 6.6%, from the prior week and a new all-time high, surpassing the previous record of $5.82 set in June 2022. AAA's own daily tracker, which updates faster than EIA's weekly survey, showed the national average still rising to $5.9773 as of Sept. 10, meaning the record set in EIA's Tuesday-survey data has already been broken again by the time it published.

The size of the weekly jump — nearly 37 cents in a single EIA reporting period — is unusual on its own; diesel typically moves a few cents week to week outside of hurricane or refinery-outage events. A move of this size points to a supply shock rather than routine demand fluctuation.

Why the price is moving this fast

The spike traces to a loss of refining and crude production capacity tied to conflict in the Arab Gulf: roughly 3 million barrels per day of regional refining capacity has been knocked offline, and Gulf crude production has been reduced by an estimated 4 to 6 million barrels per day versus a pre-conflict baseline of roughly 20 million barrels per day. Crude oil crossed $100 a barrel this week for the first time in the current cycle. Diesel is disproportionately exposed to this kind of shock because it is a middle distillate refined in the same units as jet fuel, and Gulf refining capacity skews toward exactly those units.

Wholesale futures are already ahead of the retail number: ULSD settled at $4.8010 a gallon on the CME on Wednesday, up 23.32 cents (5.11%) on the day, which typically leads the retail print by one to two weeks — meaning the retail average has further to climb before wholesale gains are fully passed through at the pump and truck stop.

What forwarders and carriers do differently

A record this size, moving this fast, changes near-term cost mechanics rather than long-term strategy:

• Fuel surcharge tables need a mid-cycle check now, not at the next scheduled reset. Most FSC tables reference the prior week's DOE/EIA number, which means the surcharge shippers are being billed today reflects a diesel price that is already roughly 37 cents stale — and, per AAA's daily figure, the price kept rising after the survey closed. A carrier or broker on a weekly-reset FSC schedule is currently under-recovering fuel cost relative to what it is paying at the pump.
• The futures-to-retail lag means this isn't over. With CME ULSD settlements running well ahead of the EIA retail print, expect at least one more sizable retail jump in the next one to two EIA reports even if crude prices hold flat from here — budget and quote accordingly rather than assuming this week's number is the peak.
• The shock is refining-capacity-driven, which changes recovery timing. Because the constraint is Gulf refining and crude output rather than a temporary U.S. weather event, the usual one-to-two-week snapback pattern carriers see after a hurricane-driven spike does not apply here. Plan fuel cost assumptions on a multi-week elevated basis rather than a short-term spike.