Wholesale diesel prices have climbed to approximately $180 per barrel on global markets, surpassing peaks that many analysts anticipated following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to Tom Kloza, Chief Energy Advisor for Gulf Oil. Because diesel and related distillate fuels power virtually all over-the-road trucking, freight rail, and oceangoing shipping, sustained prices at these levels feed directly into the cost of transporting goods across the economy. Speaking on FreightWaves Today, Kloza warned that prices could exceed $200 per barrel if a tropical storm disrupts Gulf Coast refining infrastructure.

The cautionary outlook follows fresh Energy Department data showing the United States exported nearly 2 million barrels of distillate last week — a record — alongside domestic consumption of roughly 3.5 million barrels per day. The distillate category also includes heating oil, meaning the same constrained supply pool faces additional seasonal demand during winter months in the U.S. Northeast and Europe. Refinery margins are currently running about $90 per barrel of diesel above the cost of crude, which itself is trading in the mid-$80 range. U.S. refiners are operating near capacity, but maximum domestic output is capped at approximately 5.3 million barrels per day, leaving minimal buffer against demand spikes or unplanned outages.

Kloza highlighted what he described as a rapidly growing and underreported threat: drone strikes on refining infrastructure. In a single week, attacks disabled refining capacity in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. He characterized the tactic as a permanent feature of the energy security landscape, noting that drones costing tens of thousands of dollars can destroy petroleum infrastructure worth billions because refineries are, in his words, essentially powder kegs.

"For the first 48 years of my career, I never heard about a refinery being attacked with drones. And in the last 2 years, it's been happening in spades," Kloza said.

Global refining capacity is short by an estimated 7 to 9 million barrels per day, a deficit worsened by Venezuela's prolonged production decline and Latin America's increasing reliance on U.S. diesel supply. This dynamic has made the U.S. Gulf Coast what Kloza called "the cleanest dirty shirt" for distillate sourcing — advantageous for the U.S. trade balance but also concentrating global price risk on a narrow stretch of coastline.

Kloza noted that the Trump administration could consider diesel export restrictions to cool prices if the market overheats, observing that presidential commentary on social media has already helped keep crude below $100 a barrel. However, he cautioned that actually implementing export controls would be counterproductive. "That would be a horrible policy outcome," he said, because suppressing domestic prices would discourage refinery investment at precisely the wrong moment.

The discussion also revealed a structural distortion in fuel surcharge calculations. Kloza and FreightWaves founder Craig Fuller pointed out that government-linked fuel surcharges are indexed to retail diesel prices published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, yet only about 2% of large fleets actually pay retail rates. The vast majority purchase fuel through cost-plus or negotiated rack-minus arrangements, meaning shippers tied to EIA-based surcharge formulas may be overpaying relative to what carriers actually spend. Consolidation among the three dominant truck-stop chains has widened that spread, giving major fueling networks considerable pricing power over the posted figures that underpin surcharge calculations.