Diesel prices: the IEA wants faster stock releases as the Russian deal falls short

The head of the International Energy Agency has asked its members to release emergency diesel faster, with diesel prices still close to their records. In a letter before the agency’s governing board meets on 15 October, Fatih Birol said “current market conditions merit immediate attention”, the IEA said on Sunday. Countries that have not yet delivered the stocks they pledged in March should speed up, “prioritising diesel”. All members, including those that have finished, should consider whether more diesel releases are needed, and set out their scale and timing.

Birol pointed to renewed attacks on energy sites and civilians in Saudi Arabia, including the attack on Riyadh’s international airport. The letter came two days after Donald Trump announced a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel, which the White House presents as its answer to high prices. Energy experts doubt it will help much. It is “shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic”, Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation told the Associated Press.

Where US diesel prices stand

The average US retail price of diesel was $6.199 a gallon on 5 October, the Energy Information Administration’s weekly survey shows. That is 67% more than the $3.711 of a year earlier. The price hit a record $6.529 on 21 September and has since fallen for two weeks in a row.

US retail diesel, $ a gallon. Source: US Energy Information Administration, weekly retail prices, all formulations.

6 Oct 2025	3.71
23 Feb 2026	3.81
21 Sep 2026, record	6.53
5 Oct 2026	6.20

Source: US Energy Information Administration, weekly retail prices, all formulations.The Macro Notebook

Wholesale prices have fallen further. Ultra-low-sulphur diesel in New York Harbor, a main US trading hub, cost $4.713 a gallon on 6 October, EIA data show. That is 12% below its record of $5.365 on 16 September, but still 75% above the $2.686 of 27 February, the day before the war in the Middle East began. Pump prices tend to follow wholesale prices with a lag, so the retail average may have further to fall. The EIA publishes its next weekly survey on 14 October.

Why the Russian deal is small

Trump says Russia will supply 300,000 tonnes of diesel now, 500,000 tonnes in November and 4m tonnes at some later point. As we reported on 12 October, that is about 35m barrels in all, or nine and a half days of US use, spread over months. The first cargo covers about 14 hours.

The deal will probably not have much impact on prices for American consumers, though it will benefit Russia, Clayton Seigle of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the AP. Prices are likely to stay high, the AP noted, because much of the Middle East’s refining capacity cannot reach world markets while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted. The best case, Lynch said, would be a tiny local dip in places such as the New York and New Jersey area.

The stocks are the bigger lever

Government stocks are a much larger source of supply. On 11 March the IEA’s 32 members agreed to make 400m barrels of oil available from their emergency reserves, the largest release in the agency’s history. At the time, exports of crude and refined products through the Strait of Hormuz were below 10% of their level before the conflict. In 2025 about 20m barrels a day passed through the strait, around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade. IEA members hold more than 1.2bn barrels of emergency stocks, plus 600m barrels that industry must hold by law.

Not all of the March pledges have been delivered, which is why Birol wants them sped up. A second round followed on 2 October, when the G7 agreed to release up to 100m barrels of oil and diesel over four months, NPR reported, after Trump threatened to stop all US diesel exports if Europe did not release its own stocks. That release alone is almost three times the whole Russian deal, by our calculation.

What to watch

The IEA’s governing board meets on 15 October and may agree a new diesel release. The attacks on Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries, which Washington now wants stopped, as we report separately today, are the two risks that could push prices back up. The EIA’s survey on 14 October will show whether the pump price has kept falling.