Is US Diesel at an All-Time Low? Fact Checked

On August 26 Bloomberg told its readers that US diesel supplies had hit a record low. The number underneath was 103.4 million barrels of distillate fuel oil for the EIA week ending August 21, and the sentence that carried it said something narrower than the headline: never this low at this time of year. Both things are true. They are not the same claim, and the difference is 246 weeks.

Four yardsticks, four answers

EIA publishes four numbers that can each be called "diesel," and each one has its own record. Here they are for the latest week, ranked against everything EIA has ever printed for that series.

• US distillate stocks: 104.2 million barrels, week ending August 28. Record low 87.2 million, April 19, 1996. 246 of 2,292 weeks were lower; 11th percentile of the 44-year record.
• East Coast (PADD 1) stocks: 19.3 million barrels, August 28. Record low, set this week. The prior low was 21.0 million on May 27, 2022. A 37-year record.
• Days of supply: 28.5 days, August 28. Record low 21.8 days, February 21, 2003. 14th percentile of 35 years, and the lowest late-August cover in the record.
• Pump price, EIA weekly: $5.60 a gallon, August 31. Record high $5.81, June 20, 2022. 99th percentile of 32 years; August 24's $5.65 was the sixth-highest week ever.

One of the four is at its record. It is the East Coast, not the national pile, and the one closest to a record on the other side is the price.

What "record low" meant in the sentence

Against the whole record, 104.2 million barrels is a thin pile and nothing more. The all-time low is 87.2 million, set April 19, 1996, and the ten lowest weeks on record all fall in the springs of 1992 and 1996, none above 90.2 million. Stocks were lower than the August 21 reading as recently as May 22 of this year, at 100.8 million. The year's low came in May, not August.

Against the same week of prior years, the qualifier holds exactly. No late-August reading in the 44-year weekly record is lower than this one. For the August 21 week Bloomberg wrote about, the nearest prior reading is 105.5 million in 1996; for the latest week it is 109.0 million in 1996, then 111.7 million in 2022. Heading into heating season, this is the thinnest starting pile EIA has ever measured. That is a real finding. It is a seasonal record, and the headline dropped the season.

The East Coast is the record

The district behind most shortage headlines is PADD 1, the East Coast, where New York Harbor sets the futures delivery price and where the Northeast still heats with oil. Its distillate stocks fell to 19.3 million barrels in the week ending August 28. That is the lowest reading since EIA's regional series begins in January 1990. The previous low was 21.0 million in late May 2022. Four weeks earlier the district held 25.2 million; the draw is 23 percent in a month. The same week in 2022, the year everyone remembers as the diesel squeeze, the East Coast held 27.7 million.

So "record low" is true of the East Coast on every window we have. If your tank is in New Jersey, the headline is right. If it is in Texas, the Gulf Coast holds 42.7 million barrels and has been lower in 1,456 other weeks.

The 1996 low was a different fuel

There is a second reason the all-time comparison flatters nobody. EIA's distillate total counts every sulfur grade, and the grades have flipped underneath it. In May 1993, when EIA began splitting the number, 89.2 million of 101.2 million barrels was the over-500 ppm heating-oil grade. The 15 ppm road diesel that every US pump sells today did not exist as a series until April 2004, when it was 5.9 million barrels of a much larger pile.

This week's 104.2 million is 94.2 million ULSD, 4.1 million in the 15 to 500 ppm band, and 5.9 million heating-oil grade: 90 percent road diesel. The April 1996 record low of 87.2 million was 51.5 million low-sulfur and 35.6 million high-sulfur, and none of it was ULSD. "Lowest since 1996" compares a diesel pile to a heating-oil pile. The number is honest; the fuel is not the same.

Cover and demand: thin, not empty

Days of supply is EIA's own answer to "how long does the pile last," stocks divided by the demand the refiners are actually seeing. It reads 28.5 days for August 28, the 14th percentile of a record that starts in 1991, and the lowest late-August cover EIA has ever printed (2025 was 29.4, 2022 was 29.6). The record low is 21.8 days, in February 2003. Thin, and nowhere near empty.

Demand is not what is draining it. Product supplied ran 3.39 million barrels a day in the latest week, the 20th percentile of the record, and 3.66 million over the past four weeks. What has changed is where the barrels go. Distillate exports hit 1.94 million barrels a day in the week ending August 7, the highest in a series that begins in June 2010 at 0.45 million, and ran 1.74 million in the latest week. Reuters put roughly 900,000 barrels a day of diesel moving through the Gulf before the war, and Russia has banned diesel exports through September 30. The US pile is leaving by ship.

The record is the price

GasBuddy's daily national average hit $5.820 a gallon this week, according to a September 3 Reuters report, one tenth of a cent above the June 17, 2022 record. EIA's weekly survey, which we track, printed $5.599 for the Monday of August 31, the 99th percentile of a record back to 1994, and 21 cents below its own record of $5.810 set June 20, 2022. August 24's $5.652 was the sixth-highest week in 32 years. Whether the weekly measure confirms the daily record is decided by EIA's next survey, due the week of September 7.

Put the two records side by side and the sentence that reached the dinner table reverses. Diesel is not at an all-time low. Diesel is at an all-time high on the daily measure and within a quarter of it on the weekly one. The thing that is low is the pile behind it, and the pile is at a record only on the East Coast and only for the season.

Verdict

"All-time low" fails on the national stock level (246 weeks lower, low set in 1996), fails on days of supply (14th percentile), and inverts on price (99th percentile weekly, a daily record). It holds on the East Coast, on a 37-year record, and it holds nationally for this week of the year, on a 44-year record. The headline said record low. The body said record low for August. Only the body was right.

Window honesty. The weekly EIA record begins August 1982 for national stocks, January 1990 for the regions, March 1991 for days of supply, and March 1994 for the retail price. "Ever" in this piece means those windows.