Two lines are crossing on the trucking chart, and the crossing is bad news for anyone who buys their own fuel. Diesel is within reach of the highest price ever recorded in the United States. Spot rates — the price the market actually pays for a truck — have been drifting down for weeks.
The fuel line
The government's number first. EIA's weekly survey put the national average for on-highway diesel at $5.454 a gallon for the week of August 17, up 19.7 cents in a week and $1.74 above the same week last year. The Midwest jumped 25.4 cents to $5.435; California sits at $6.785. Since July 6, when the national average was $4.578, diesel has climbed 88 cents — about 19% — in six weeks.
GasBuddy's real-time reading, which runs ahead of the government survey, went further: $5.58 nationally on August 24, after a jump of nearly 17 cents in a week. 'Diesel surged nearly 17 cents per gallon nationally, leaving it less than 25 cents away from an all-time record high,' said Patrick De Haan, GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis. The record is $5.81, set in EIA's survey for the week of June 20, 2022.
Why diesel specifically
This is a refining squeeze, not a crude squeeze. Hostilities in the Middle East have knocked out roughly 9.6 million barrels a day — about a fifth — of the region's refining capacity, by the International Energy Agency's count; Russia, until recently the world's second-largest diesel exporter, has restricted exports after drone strikes on its refineries. The U.S. diesel crack spread — the refiner's margin between crude and diesel — crossed $100 a barrel for the first time ever on August 17, and U.S. fuel exports hit a record 1.9 million barrels a day as the rest of the world came shopping here.
“ Those flows are drawing down already tight U.S. inventories, the only major hub open for business. ”
The rate line
Over the same six weeks, DAT's national dry van spot linehaul — the rate paid to the carrier with fuel stripped out — has gone from $2.32 a mile in the week ending July 31 to $2.25 in the week ending August 14 to $2.21 in the week of August 16–22. The all-in spot rate, fuel surcharge included, was $2.93. Rates are still far above last summer — dry van linehaul was up 38% year over year in mid-August — but the direction since July is unmistakable, and it is the opposite of the pump.
“ Freight went up, trucks went down and rates still eased. ”
DAT's own numbers for the week of August 16–22 make the point: load posts rose 3%, equipment posts fell 3%, and all three linehaul rates — van, reefer and flatbed — still came down as summer volumes tailed off into Labor Day.
Who eats the gap
The answer is written into how freight is priced. Contract freight carries a separate fuel surcharge, indexed to the weekly EIA diesel print with a lag of a week or so; when diesel rises 20 cents, the surcharge line rises with it and the shipper pays. Spot freight has no such line. A spot rate is one all-in number, set by what the market will bear that day — and this month the market is bearing less, not more. The carrier running spot loads buys fuel at Monday's price and sells the load at a rate that has been sliding since July.
The arithmetic, in round numbers
88 cents more per gallon since July 6 (EIA), at a typical 6.5 miles per gallon, is roughly 13.5 cents of extra cost per mile.
DAT dry van linehaul fell 11 cents per mile between the weeks ending July 31 and August 22.
Add the two and a spot van carrier is roughly a quarter per mile worse off than seven weeks ago — before any change in insurance, tolls or truck payments.
A contract carrier with an indexed surcharge sees most of the fuel side reimbursed; the owner-operator on the load boards sees none of it unless the rate moves.
There is no sign the fuel side resolves quickly. Analysts at Bank of America and FGE expect the refining shortfall to outlast the fighting that caused it, because refinery capacity and inventories take months to rebuild. The rate side may get its usual seasonal lift when produce and retail freight return in the fall. Until then, the squeeze belongs to whoever is quoting all-in prices with someone else's diesel index in the tank.
Fuel up, rates down — track both
Weekly diesel, spot and contract rate coverage for carriers and owner-operators on Qrylo.