The price of diesel hits a record high

0:00$5.85 a gallon. On average, that's how much diesel in the U.S. cost now. It is an all-time high. NPR Energy reporter Willa Rubin explains why and what that means for the price of, well, everything. Much of the economy runs on diesel. Trucks, tractors, nearly 90% of school buses. Jaime Brito is the head of Dow Jones Energy and he does not mince words about why diesel matters. Diesel is the bloc of the economy, is the engine in which you move goods, food, agricultural goods from the farm to the supermarket. And when the price of diesel goes up, it hurts. It's gone up by more than $2.00 a gallon on average over the past year, according to AAA. The last time prices were this high, it was 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And when I asked Brito about what's behind these record-high diesel prices, he asked,

1:02How much time do you have? I mean, the diesel story, I would title it, you know, everything, everywhere, all at once, no? In other words, it's not one factor driving up the price, it's all of them. Factor 1, the straight of Hormuz. Because of the war in Iran, not much oil is getting through it. Factor 2, refineries around the world, like in China, have scaled back their exports, so they can meet their own needs. Factor 3, Jet Fuel. The war drove up the price of jet fuel, and consequently, airfare. What refineries in the US did is they tried to take the opportunity of the price incentive to produce more jet fuel. But making more jet fuel meant we got less diesel. Then Factor 4, the war in Ukraine. Ukraine has been firing at Russian refineries, taking many of them offline. Russia has stopped exporting its remaining diesel. It all adds up to a perfect storm. So it's scary, I mean, the diesel situation is like the entire supply shock was concentrated

2:08throughout the supply chain into the diesel market, and this is what we have now. That risk driving up prices for everything. Patrick De Han, petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, says, There's going to be a trickle down. A trickle down to the price of food, because it's nearly harvest season, and lots of farm equipment runs on diesel. And with winter on the horizon, homes in part of the country use heating oil, which is functionally the same as diesel, so potentially more expensive. And frankly, anything that has to be shipped probably needs diesel. If the cost of diesel is elevated, Americans are going to feel it indirectly through whatever they buy, whatever they have delivered. And the groceries that they buy, the fruits that they eat, the meats, all of it moves a whipped diesel. Which could mean an expensive few months to come. Willa Rubin and PR News.