US diesel futures extend gains, up 4.5% after storage report
The move follows a stretch of weeks in which distillate supply has tightened even as crude stockpiles have grown.
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Chart: USO, a fund that tracks crude, one-minute prices, three sessions
US diesel futures are up 4.5% on Wednesday, extending a rally that began after a government storage report showed tightening supply.
The move builds on a pattern that has held for weeks. In the week ending September 18, US distillate stocks, which cover diesel and heating oil, stood at 107.4 million barrels, down about 0.4 million barrels from the prior week, according to Energy Information Administration data reported by The Vault Report. That level sat roughly 12% below the five-year seasonal average and more than 13% below year-ago totals, according to Success Knocks.
The draw echoes what showed up in EIA data on September 22, when distillate stocks fell 2.164 million barrels even as crude inventories built sharply. That gap between a tightening refined-product market and a loosening crude market has now repeated for weeks, and today's jump in diesel futures extends it rather than reversing it.
Success Knocks has also reported an ongoing policy debate over the impact on 2026 prices of a 90-day US diesel export ban floated under the Trump administration, a factor some traders are weighing as winter heating demand approaches. The diesel move is specific to distillate markets. Crude inventories have kept building against forecasts even after the EIA lifted its 2026 price outlook, so today's spike carries no clear signal for broader stock indexes.