On August 17 the diesel crack spread — the gap between diesel futures and crude, the market's measure of refining profitability — broke $100 a barrel for the first time in history, touching $102.20. The old all-time record of $89 stood from October 2022 until this March; now it has fallen twice in one year. At the pump, the national average hit $5.454 a gallon in the EIA's August 17 reading, up almost 20 cents in a single week and more than 50% since January.
Three refining hubs down at once
This isn't a normal seasonal squeeze. For the first time in the modern market, all three of the world's major refining regions outside the U.S. are impaired simultaneously — and U.S. distillate inventories are entering late August at their lowest level since 1996.
What's choking global diesel supply
Strait of Hormuz flows have collapsed from about 21.6 million barrels a day late last year to roughly 4.9 million in Q2, with U.S. officials expecting disruption to persist into 2027
Ukrainian drone strikes have hit about 24 of Russia's 34 large refineries; Russian diesel exports fell to roughly 80,000 barrels a day in early August, from over a million late last year
A Houthi strike knocked Saudi Arabia's 200,000-barrel-a-day Jizan refinery offline through at least the end of August
U.S. refiners are reportedly deferring planned maintenance to capture record margins — which raises the risk of unplanned outages later
“ Unless supply recovers materially, diesel markets will remain tight, volatile, and expensive for an extended period. ”
What it does to your cost per mile
Fuel is the cost line that moves rates: RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas calculates that diesel prices alone explain 46% of the variation in the trucking producer price index going back to 2004. The catch for carriers is timing — surcharge tables reset on a lag. In the March spike, dry van fuel surcharges took weeks to climb from 44 to 60 cents a mile while pump prices had already jumped. The same lag is in play now, so freight priced before August 17 is quietly thinner than it looks.
California check: $7 is real — but not a new record
AAA's statewide average crossed $7.04 a gallon on August 20, and the EIA's weekly reading stands at $6.79. That's a return toward — not past — the roughly $7.22 peak California hit in April. The spread between the cheapest state (Oklahoma, about $5.07) and California is now nearly two dollars a gallon: route planning has rarely mattered more.
How to protect your margin right now
Audit your fuel surcharge lag — make sure the table is resetting off the August EIA prints, not July's
Reprice spot freight with current fuel baked in; the market is repricing with you, not against you
Plan fuel stops around the state spread — nearly $2 a gallon separates the cheapest and priciest states
Slow down: at these prices, DAT's Dean Croke estimated in March that dropping from 75 to 65 mph saves 8–9 cents a mile in fuel
Fuel economy is the new margin
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