Diesel hits all-time record as crack spreads keep pump prices elevated

Labor Day usually means road-trip season winding down — instead it delivered the priciest gas and diesel Americans have ever seen at the pump. Refining margins are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and EIA just spelled out exactly why.

Retail gasoline and diesel both notched record highs over the Labor Day weekend, with diesel topping $5.90/gal amid tight distillate stocks ahead of harvest season, while EIA attributes elevated pump prices largely to gasoline crack spreads running about $1/gal above 2025 levels on tight global gasoline supply. Geopolitics continues to threaten refined product supply chains: Ukraine struck additional Russian refineries in Perm and Tatarstan, Houthi drones hit Saudi Aramco's Jazan refinery, and renewed US-Iran tensions kept Hormuz risk premiums in crude and diesel elevated. On policy, the House committee advanced the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, EPA's small-refinery exemptions are drawing pushback from Iowa's biofuel industry, and Montana Renewables revised its renewable diesel/SAF expansion plans.