US retail diesel · dollars per gallon · five-year window

Five quiet years of diesel, blown out in a single month

Diesel spent 2023 through 2025 grinding back toward the $3.50–$3.80 range. Then in March 2026 the price shot up in a matter of weeks — clearing the 2022 war-shock peak and climbing into new territory by September.

The shape of the five years

Monthly path reconstructed from EIA's weekly/monthly diesel price series (via FRED)

$3.50 $4.00 $4.50 $5.00 $5.50 $6.00 $6.50 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 $6.29 now$5.81 Jun 2022$3.30 low$4.58 Jul 2026

Price today

$6.29

per gallon · week of Sep 14, 2026

The highest point anywhere in the five-year window. Diesel climbed from about $4.58 in early July 2026 to $6.29 now — up more than 35% in about ten weeks.

Change over five years

+90%

Oct 2021 → Sep 2026

Diesel started the window near $3.30. Nothing in between has undone that climb — the 2023–25 slide only took prices back to the $3.50–$3.80 range.

2022 shock peak

$5.81

week of June 20, 2022

The EIA's all-time weekly high before 2026, set after Russia's invasion of Ukraine tightened US distillate supply and pulled exports toward Europe.

Five-year low

$3.30

October 2021

The cheapest reading on the chart. Diesel has only briefly revisited this zone since — low $3.50s in early 2026, just before the March jump.

The 2026 jump

+45%

Feb → Mar 2026

From about $3.72 in February to $5.40 by the end of March — a move packed into a few weeks, versus the several months the 2022 spike took to cover similar ground.

Mid-2026 pullback

−15%

Apr → Jul 2026

Prices eased back from around $5.40 to a low of $4.58 in early July, before turning sharply higher again through August and September.

The quiet stretch

$3.50–$3.80

most of 2024–2025

Roughly two years of unusually narrow trading, with both 2024 and 2025 averaging in this band. It is the flattest passage on the chart, and it ended abruptly in March 2026.

Now versus 2022

+8%

above the June 2022 peak ($5.81)

Today's price has cleared the war-shock high of 2022, so this is uncharted territory for the five-year series rather than a retest.