Americans Are Out Of Places To Hide From Fuel Crisis

The summer may be ending, but Americans are still feeling pain at the pump.

Labor Day traditionally portends a break for drivers. Demand wanes as families trade road trip vacations for school drop offs, pushing prices down. But this year, something unusual is happening: prices are on the rise.

Gasoline prices were at an average of $4.15 per gallon as of Thursday, already the highest price ever for September — and well above the $3.80 per gallon drivers paid on July 4, the peak of the summer driving season. Meanwhile, diesel prices rose to a record high of $5.85 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

The causes are clear. Resumed fighting in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for Middle East oil, has threatened to constrain production and supply. A barrage of Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries has further roiled markets. And US inventory cushions are shrinking, while the world’s fuel-makers are largely out of capacity to boost production further.

So are the effects. It’s more expensive to fill up a gas tank, but also more expensive to move products on trucks. Food costs, already elevated, are poised to rise further as farmers pay more for diesel to power their tractors. Broader inflation has traders betting there’s about a 50-50 chance of a rate hike when the Federal Reserve meets in mid-September, threatening to further push up borrowing costs.

For President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, the result is a growing crisis with just over two months before the midterm elections. The president said he advocated for lower retail prices as he met with fuel refiners and distributors at the White House this week, and announced a spate of new deals designed to secure Venezuelan oil supplies for US companies. He’s also asked the Justice Department to investigate energy firms for possible price gouging. But those steps aren’t expected to have an immediate impact on consumer prices.

“The fact that we’re heading into the home stretch of election season with gas prices at historically very high levels, with no obvious signs of relief, should be very concerning to incumbent politicians, especially Republicans,” said Neale Mahoney, a professor of economics at Stanford University who worked on fuels policy in the Biden administration.

Trump, speaking to reporters earlier this week, acknowledged gas prices were “important” for American voters, and predicted his intervention in Venezuela was “going to go fast” in delivering an impact for consumers.

“The gasoline is going to go down, the oil is going to go down like a rocket going in the opposite direction as soon as we win” the war with Iran, Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

Previously, though, Trump has publicly dismissed concerns about high energy prices, saying he believed voters were willing to sustain more expensive prices to ensure Iran did not obtain nuclear weapons. He’s also framed the spike in prices as less than he expected before launching the war.

That may have been true in the early months of the war, when the US had plentiful supplies of crude oil and refined products like gasoline and diesel. But as the conflict dragged on, those stockpiles were quickly tapped to supply the rest of the world with much-needed fuel. Meanwhile US refineries are having to run as hard as possible, with facilities in the Midwest operating at over 103% of listed capacity.

And while shipping through the Middle East has recovered in fits and starts, another crisis – Russia’s loss of refining capacity after months of Ukrainian drone strikes – has left the world decisively short of the ability to make the fuel it desperately needs.

That’s evident in the profit margins for making diesel, which now are hovering near record highs in the US, indicating severe market tightness. Stockpiles of diesel have fallen to the lowest seasonal levels on record with fall approaching, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts recently hiked their forecasts for diesel-making profit margins in the fourth quarter of 2026.

It’s also apparent in public polling. While 38% of Americans said they felt like gasoline prices were higher than the same time a year ago when surveyed by Ipsos shortly after the start of the war, a full 79% reported experiencing hiked prices in late August.

Meanwhile, some traders may see a rare opportunity to bet on gasoline prices rising into the winter, with stockpiles at the lowest entering September since 2012. Refineries also tend to conduct maintenance in the fall and produce less gasoline, said Ryan McKay, senior commodity strategist at TD Securities.

“Labor Day is seen as the end of driving season, but I don’t think that means there is no bull case for gasoline,” McKay said. “Gasoline supply will remain tight.”

Everyone’s problem

Initially, the pocketbook strain didn’t hamper growth. In the first half of the year, American consumers remained resilient in the face of elevated gasoline prices and cost-of-living pressures. Helped in large part by larger-than-usual tax refunds and strong household balance sheets, their spending continued undimmed.

But higher energy costs will take up a larger share of household budgets just as the boost from tax refunds fades, leaving less money for other purchases and slowing consumption in the second half, according to a Goldman Sachs note to clients. Other parts of the world face a similar challenge, with politicians around Europe starting to sound the alarm about fuel-driven inflation. Economists broadly expect spending to keep growing, albeit at a slower rate.

“This situation is a slow squeeze,” Mahoney said. “When consumers go to the pump, the total is still larger than what they have in their budget.”

Everyone is feeling the pain. While deep blue California has the country’s highest prices, the cost of fueling up in Wyoming has also soared. Gas consistently costs more in many major US cities compared to national averages, but many rural areas have posted sharper gains than urban areas.

“Prices are always going to vary even amongst red and blue states,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “Everyone is paying a lot more than last year.”

In Houston, the capital of America’s oil and gas industry, gas cost nearly $1.10 more on August 31 than it did on the day before the war began, according to data from GasBuddy. A one-dollar increase in prices equates to $60 more a month for the average household, said Christopher Knittel, a professor of applied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

That pain has sunk in, said Ford Johnson, a driver filling up his tank in the city’s Montrose neighborhood.

“You can feel it, every paycheck you get, you just kind of know that a lot of it’s going towards gas and you just kind of have to know that,” said Johnson. “I think the worst part is you know that it could be better.”

The prices may hit voters in the president’s base the hardest, creating dangerous conditions for Republicans in midterm elections often decided by base enthusiasm. Rural drivers pump more gas, driving more miles in less fuel-efficient vehicles, according to Knittel. With the price of diesel soaring in tandem, stations positioned further from pipeline terminals also need to account for far higher transportation costs, said Thomas Weinandy, principal research economist for fuel cash-back app Upside.

Expensive diesel — which is effectively interchangeable with heating oil — could prove particularly salient ahead of a critical Senate race in Maine, where the highest proportion of homes heat with the fuel. Similarly, diesel is a key input for farmers in states like Kansas and Iowa, which are seen as long-shot pickup opportunities for Democrats.

“I’m not going to make a promise about when it’s going to return to $3,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters Thursday at the White House. “We have to remember why are we doing this: Number one, it’s so that Iran never have a nuclear weapon, and number two, what we’re doing right now is protecting commercial shipping.”

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.