Iran War Drives Bigger Diesel Supply Loss Despite Trump’s Claims

Diesel prices have never been higher. US President Donald Trump contends that’s not because of the war he started nearly seven months ago.

“The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran,” Trump said in a social media post this week. He’s since reiterated the assertion.

But according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg and double-checked with diesel traders, the Iran war has removed more diesel supply from the market than the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

From March to August, estimates from energy analytics companies, Energy Aspects, Kpler and Vortexa, imply an average loss of about 770,000 barrels a day from the Middle East compared to the same period in 2025. That’s more than twice the roughly 350,000-barrel-a-day loss of Russian supplies over the same time-frame.

The global energy market was thrown into disarray this year, with a widely expected oil glut erased by the Iran conflict. Crude prices soared after the US and Israel attacked Tehran at the end of February, with supply squeezed through the Strait of Hormuz. While crude barrels are again making their way through Hormuz, shipments of oil products, including diesel, are more heavily curtailed. 

To be sure, the impact on diesel supply from the Ukraine conflict has grown in recent months after a barrage of attacks on Russian oil refineries. In July and August, when Moscow imposed a diesel-exports ban, shipments fell by 615,000 barrels a day compared to the same months in 2025. That’s almost as many barrels as were lost from the Middle East.

Critically, the loss of Russian supplies occurred months into the Iran war, during which the world’s fuel and crude oil stockpiles drew down — leaving little cushion to absorb the blow.

“In pure volumetric terms Iran is bigger,” Eugene Lindell, head of refined products at consultancy FGE NexantECA, said of the war-driven loss. “But, of course, prices are set at the margin,” he said. Taking hundreds of thousands of further barrels off the market “turned a super tight market into a historically tight one.”

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in an emailed statement on Friday that “The President is right: the Russia-Ukraine war, which would never have started if President Trump had been in office, has greatly contributed to diesel prices reaching record highs. Thanks to President Trump’s energy dominance agenda, the United States is the world’s leading producer and exporter of oil.”

As a country, Russia is typically the world’s second-largest exporter of diesel, the industrial fuel essential for everything from freight to agriculture. In 2024, it averaged around 930,000 barrels a day of exports of the fuel, according to Vortexa.

But taken as a region, the Middle East is a more prolific shipper, exporting around 1.7 million barrels a day in the same year.

Trump, in his social media post, said Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to stop attacks on energy infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said no deal had been finalized and strikes have continued this week. Russia’s diesel export ban may be extended through October.

US and European refiners, meanwhile, have been running near full capacity to try and meet global demand. 

European diesel futures rose over 100% in the early months of the Iran war, while US contracts also soared. Those prices cooled as the US and Iran agreed to a temporary ceasefire. But as conflict in the Middle East re-escalated and Russian exports collapsed, prices climbed once more, eclipsing the springtime highs. In the US, diesel futures settled at an all-time record on Tuesday.

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Given the scale of the problem, an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to halt strikes might offer some relief, but wouldn’t fully solve the supply shortfall, analysts and traders say.

“Iran conflict-related shortages are the biggest driver of the diesel and product shortage and price spike, though damage to Russian refineries is exacerbating these trends,” said Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank. “A ceasefire that leads to repair of refineries and return of Russian products would ease some pressure.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

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