Diesel shortage winter 2026/27: why diesel is scarcer than crude oil

1. Why diesel is scarcer than crude

As of 31 October: Russia's diesel export ban for producers formally expires today, but is set to be extended to the end of the year. At the end of September the government extended the ban on exports of diesel, marine fuel and gasoil through 31 October inclusive (government statement via Kommersant, 30 September). According to a Reuters report of 29 October, citing two people familiar with the discussions, Moscow will extend the ban until the end of the year and meet its supply commitment to the United States through exemption quotas: in October several refiners were granted quotas totalling 0.5 million tonnes, in November they are to rise to 2 million tonnes, about 0.5 million barrels a day; a new government order is expected in early November, and the Energy Ministry did not comment. According to Novak, three tankers were already en route at the end of October and a fourth was due to sail on 28 October (Reuters). For the market this means Russian diesel returns in limited, politically steered volumes, not as free exports. Oil prices offered no relief: the December Brent contract expired on 30 October at $117.64, the January contract settled at $113.43 and WTI at $104.12, a six-month high (Reuters via The Korea Times).

As of 22 October: Russia is due to send its first diesel tanker to the United States. A tanker with 40,000 tonnes of diesel is to leave for the US on 22 October, and more shipments will follow, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on 21 October, without naming a destination port (Al Jazeera). US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who met President Putin in St Petersburg that day, said several tankers were being prepared (Al Jazeera). What volumes arrive on a regular basis after that is open. On 21 October, Reuters said, the prospect of progress towards Ukraine peace talks weighed on oil prices; Brent settled almost unchanged at $108.82 (Reuters).

As of 20 October: a first Russian diesel cargo has loaded, and Kyiv has declared the energy truce over. On 13 October a tanker at Primorsk loaded about 40,000 tonnes of ultra-low sulphur diesel bound for Morocco, the first reported cargo since Moscow eased its export ban (LSEG data via The Moscow Times); how much follows is open. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on 15 October that the diesel had started reaching global markets, and Russia wants exports back at 3.5 million tonnes a month by the end of the year (The Moscow Times). From 1 to 10 October, before that cargo, Russia shipped an average of 146,000 barrels of diesel a day by sea, the weakest reading in Vortexa's series since early 2016 (Bloomberg analysis).

On 15 October Kyiv declared an end to the energy ceasefire Trump had announced on 11 October: President Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that Kyiv was done with the truce and would keep hitting refineries. The same day Russia's defence ministry reported a drone attack on the Ryazan refinery (Al Jazeera). According to Reuters sources, Ryazan then shut a main crude distillation unit. On 18 October the St Petersburg oil terminal and a fuel depot were hit, Governor Alexander Beglov said; Russia's defence ministry said 1,015 drones were downed overnight over 15 regions, while Zelenskyy said Russia had struck Ukrainian energy, oil and gas sites 76 times since Trump's announcement (Al Jazeera). Washington, for its part, keeps loosening: on 16 October Trump signed an order waiving the Russia provisions of the Graham Act, including tariffs of up to 500% on Russian oil and gas (ABC News). How much extra diesel that produces is unclear; Reuters reported on 16 October that investors questioned how much diesel Russia could actually supply.

As of 11 October: Russia has eased its diesel export ban; nothing has been delivered yet. President Trump wrote on 9 October that Russia would immediately supply over 300,000 tonnes of diesel to the American and global market, another 500,000 tonnes in November and a million after that (Truth Social via Al Jazeera). After a 90-minute call between Putin and Trump, the Kremlin confirmed only that it was ready to supply oil and oil products, without figures (Al Jazeera). On 10 October the Russian government eased the diesel export ban, at first for 500,000 tonnes; Deputy Prime Minister Novak cited 300,000 tonnes in October, 500,000 in November and a million in December, possibly up to three million a month later on (TASS). The market reacted to Trump's announcement itself: the US futures contract for diesel and heating oil fell 4.6% to $4.73 a gallon on 9 October; DTN also cites reports that China will resume fuel exports.

For the shortage itself, little changes at first. The volumes are announced, not delivered, and they depend on how much Russian refineries can produce after the Ukrainian drone strikes. The underlying problem described below stays the same: the world is short above all of refined products, less of crude.

There is crude; what is missing is the refining capacity that turns it into diesel and the shipping that carries the diesel to where it is needed. Two quotes from the same evening make the point: at 19:40 on 22 September 2026 Brent stood at $99.80 a barrel and was falling, while ICE gasoil stood at $1,452.50 a tonne and rose 0.99 per cent (HeizOel24.at). Converting the tonne at the customary 7.45 barrels, a barrel of gasoil costs about $195, roughly $95 more than the crude it is made from. That gap, the diesel crack spread, is the shortage in a single number; our conversion is an approximation, the order of magnitude is not. Ten days later, at 13:14 on 2 October, gasoil stood at $1,385 a tonne (−4.33 per cent) and Brent at $100.03 (−3.08 per cent); at the same factor that is about $186 a barrel for gasoil, roughly $86 above the crude (HeizOel24.ch, our approximation).

Since 1 October the gap can be measured: crude is back, products are not. According to Kpler (as of Monday, 28 September), 13.5 million barrels of crude a day pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the prewar level; refined products manage only 677,000 barrels a day on a seven-day average, against 3.6 million before the war, a little under a fifth (IBTimes citing Kpler, 1 October). Behind that sits refining: Middle East refineries processed about 7.3 million barrels a day in August against 9.9 million in February, and Kpler sees no full return before the second quarter of 2027. About 40 per cent of Gulf crude now leaves the region without passing Hormuz, against 17 per cent before the war (Kpler). So the headline “Hormuz flows again” holds for crude, not for diesel.

Three causes overlap. First, Hormuz: the Gulf states are large exporters of finished products, and Bloomberg reported on 10 September that product shipments through the strait are recovering more slowly than crude; freight now costs at least 25 per cent of the crude price to Asia (OilPrice.com, 22 September). Second, Russia: after drone strikes, three of the country's six largest diesel refineries had to cut or halt output in September (Hydrocarbon Processing, 16 September); the diesel export ban runs until 31 October for producers, gasoline is banned until January and jet fuel until November (Moscow Times, 30 September). Third, utilisation: US refineries ran at 96.8 per cent in the week to 11 September (DOE via HeizOel24), and European plants are at maximum according to Motor16; no more diesel is coming out of this asset base. Since 1 October there is also China's reported halt of product exports (Reuters via Dawn, not officially confirmed); more on that under “What winter brings”.

3. What winter brings: shortage or just price?

As of 22 October: retail diesel in the US is a little cheaper than a month ago, residential heating oil a little dearer than last week. Diesel averaged $6.31 a gallon on 21 October, down from $6.51 a month earlier (AAA via Al Jazeera). Oil-heated households paid an average of $6.190 a gallon before taxes in the week of 19 October, up from $6.138 the week before (EIA). On the morning of 22 October the market climbed again: Brent was up 2.59% at $111.64 by 06:26 GMT, with Reuters pointing among other things to a drone attack near Saudi Arabia's Shaybah oilfield, an attack on Dammam airport and the ordered departure of US personnel's families from Saudi Arabia. Gasoil traded at $1,454.25 a tonne at 09:37 CEST, 1.39% above the previous day (HeizOel24). The International Energy Agency's view stands: the gasoil market stays tight well into 2027.

As of 20 October: the International Energy Agency expects a tight gasoil market well into 2027, and the squeeze already shows at some pumps. That is the verdict of its Oil Market Report of 14 October (IEA). In France, 16.2% of filling stations had no diesel or E10 on the evening of 18 October and 14.4% at 10 am on 19 October, against 12.8% on 22 September (economy ministry data analysed by Selectra); the data do not say why. Paris plans to sell 10 million barrels of diesel from strategic stocks at cost from November to January and expects pump prices to fall by 12 to 18 euro cents a litre on average (French government, info.gouv.fr). In western Germany, diesel was at times unavailable at filling stations in early October, in cities such as Cologne, Bonn, Koblenz, Mannheim and Frankfurt, according to industry figures; operators blame low water on the Rhine and high demand, and a filling station association reported a surge in demand from the fuel tax cut. The Kaub gauge read 16 cm on the evening of 19 October, after minus 6 cm on 1 October, the lowest since records began; the industry body en2x sees no widespread problem and says supply remains secure (Berliner Zeitung). For oil-heated homes in the US, the EIA put the average residential heating oil price at $6.138 a gallon in the week of 12 October.

As of 11 October: EIA expects high but falling heating oil prices this winter. Its Winter Fuels Outlook of 6 October expects oil-heated US households to pay an average of $5.26 a gallon from November to March, 34% more than last winter, on a monthly path from $5.79 in November to $4.84 in March. It names higher crude oil and distillate prices, lower refining activity worldwide, export demand and low US distillate stocks; the outlook says nothing about supply security. For Brent it expects about $105 in the fourth quarter of 2026 and $84 on average in 2027 (STEO, 6 October). The September outlook figures in the next paragraph stay on the page as background.

The EIA does not expect empty pumps; it expects high prices: $5.55 a gallon for diesel in the fourth quarter of 2026 and $5.66 for heating oil, then a decline to $4.40 and $4.31 on average in 2027 as the Hormuz constraints unwind in the second quarter of 2027 (STEO, 9 September). The market prices scarcity, it does not ration it; rationing was the exception in March 2026 (Slovenia limited private motorists to 50 litres a day, Wikipedia) and stayed the exception. What winter adds is seasonal: heating oil demand in the US Northeast and in Europe, winter diesel with costlier additives from November, and cold that raises consumption per mile.

Several supply-side moves have come in recent days, and they concern products, not crude. China: according to Reuters, Chinese refiners have suspended exports of oil products except to Hong Kong and Macau until further notice; the report names no individual fuels, the source is four people familiar with the matter, and there is no official Chinese confirmation; Brent closed at $102.31 on 1 October, 4.37 per cent higher, and Dawn names as a further driver that day a Wall Street Journal report on a third US aircraft carrier (Reuters via Dawn). Russia: the diesel export ban runs until 31 October for producers and until January for non-producers; gasoline is banned outright until January and jet fuel until November. The government cites domestic supply during the harvest season and shortages after Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries (Moscow Times, 30 September).

Putin said at the Valdai forum on 1 October that, by his own estimate, the refinery strikes cost Russia about 1 per cent of GDP, and asked: “How is our diesel supposed to reach the global market with sanctions still in place? It can't.” For context, Russia itself has banned diesel exports by producers until 31 October (Moscow Times, 30 September). He called the idea of giving up attacks on Ukrainian ships in return for an end to the refinery strikes absurd (Meduza, 1 October). In the night to 2 October drones hit the Volgograd refinery, the Kaustik chemical plant and a Transneft station with a tank farm near Samara; the governor of Volgograd spoke of a massive drone attack on industrial infrastructure, one person was injured, and the fires at the refinery and the tank farm are so far documented only by eyewitness video and not officially confirmed (Meduza, 2 October). A decree of 28 September also bans the publication of refinery, export, buyer and route data unless the company publishes it itself; according to Reuters this is meant to make it harder to enforce sanctions (Kyiv Independent). The consequence: independent figures on Russian outages will become rarer.

On top came a dispute over reserves. President Trump had demanded at least 100 million barrels of diesel from Europe and threatened an export ban on US diesel; the European Commission replied: “We fully reject a ban on diesel. A ban would not be beneficial to anyone. It would undermine our trust in the US as a reliable partner.” Before that the EU had been weighing a French counterproposal of 50 million barrels of diesel from European stocks plus 50 million barrels of crude from IEA members. In the afternoon of 2 October the G7 decided: they release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude through the IEA, starting immediately and spread over four months, with a “substantial” share of diesel in the first 20 days (The Irish Times, updated 16:25). After the announcement the European diesel future fell 8 per cent to $1,337.75 a tonne, and Brent dropped below $99 for a time (Irish Times; Trading Economics). At the earlier interim reading of almost 6 per cent ($1,364 a tonne) the paper had seen roughly eight cents a litre at the pump as possible; we have no calculation for the position after the decision. Whether Trump's threat of an export ban still stands after the decision is open.

Two things could change the picture quickly. Upwards: a collapse of the Hormuz talks as on 8 July, further refinery outages in Russia or further attacks on ships; on 1 October an unknown projectile hit a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, a fire broke out on board, the crew were unharmed, and the report named no culprit (UKMTO via Asharq Al-Awsat). Downwards: a reopening of the strait to products as well; it would cheapen crude fast and diesel slowly, because stocks have to be rebuilt first (see Hormuz reopening: three scenarios). The US outlook for diesel and heating oil is on US diesel and heating oil prices. The next fixed date is 31 October, when the Russian diesel export ban for producers ends unless it is extended again.