US Diesel Reaches $5.43 a Gallon, Up 45% in a Year, While Industrial Natural Gas Falls 14%
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — September 15, 2026 — American fleets paid $5.43 a gallon for diesel in August 2026, 44.6% more than a year earlier, while the natural gas that runs the country's factories fell 13.8% over the same twelve months, according to the September 2026 edition of Intratec's Energy Prices & Markets.
The two halves of the American energy bill have pulled apart. Everything that passes through a refinery, the crude that goes in and the fuels that come out, rose sharply over the year: diesel on the export market climbed 88.0%, jet fuel 79.0%, gasoline on the export market 48.9% and crude oil 28.1%. Everything that heats or powers a plant did not. Industrial natural gas fell to $3.57 per MMBtu and gas for power generation to $3.08, down 7.2% on the year. Industrial electricity, at 9.34 cents per kilowatt-hour, rose 3.1%. The August figures for industrial natural gas and industrial electricity are preliminary, drawn from Intratec's price models pending official statistics.
Intratec's six-month forecasts point the other way for fuels. Retail diesel is projected to ease from about $5.30 a gallon in September 2026 to about $4.50 by February 2027, gasoline on the export market from about $3.30 to about $2.50 a gallon, and crude oil from $86 to $76 a barrel. Industrial natural gas is forecast to move in the opposite direction, from about $3.60 to about $5.10 per MMBtu over the same six months.
Measured against the other 32 countries the program covers, in August 2026 the United States had the third-cheapest natural gas of the 33, behind only Saudi Arabia and Mexico, and the fifth-cheapest fuel oil. On diesel it ranked 20th and on gasoline 22nd.
The country also produced more energy than it used. Between January and May 2026 the United States produced 113% of the energy it demanded, and natural gas supplied 36.3% of its electricity against 29.6% from renewables, 17.4% from nuclear and 14.9% from coal.
Energy Prices & Markets is a monthly subscription program covering twelve energy commodities — among them crude oil, natural gas, coal, diesel, gasoline, electricity and biofuels — across 33 countries. Its assessments are built from official trade statistics and computational models rather than from buyer and seller quotes, and the Advanced edition carries current prices, price history, six-month forecasts, trade and production data, and maritime freight and insurance costs.
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Intratec Solutions — Independent Commodity, Energy & Industrial Intelligence. In operation since 2002, Intratec turns complex commodity and industrial data into clear, comparable intelligence. Its AI-enabled products cover prices, market dynamics, production economics, and the broader conditions that shape competitiveness. More at intratec.us.
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