News of the Day March 24, 2026
Trump Administration Plans to Bring more Diesel to Market

The Trump administration plans to bring additional diesel to the market as fuel prices surge, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC on Monday.

“We do have some ideas on diesel, that we can bring extra diesel to the marketplace,” Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in an interview. “I think we’ll see that happen before too long.”

Diesel prices have surged about 40% to $5.29 per gallon, the highest level since 2022, as the Iran war has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history. Diesel is used by trucks and freight trains to transport goods to market.

Wright said the U.S. is not considering limiting diesel exports as prices rise.

“You don’t want to interrupt the free flow of energy trades,” Wright said. “We refine more oil than we can consume. If we blocked exports, we’d have to turn down our own refineries and produce less oil and less refined products. That wouldn’t be productive for the United States, certainly wouldn’t be productive for the world.”

The U.S. will release about 1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address the supply disruption triggered by the Iran war, Wright said at S&P Global’s CERAWeek energy conference here. Emergency stockpile releases could reach nearly 3 million bpd total, he said.

“It’s going to be between a million and a million and a half barrels a day out of U.S. stocks,” Wright said. “And we’ll get possibly close to 3 million barrels total.”

Oil from the U.S. strategic reserve started flowing on Friday afternoon, Wright said. “Japan has also moved quickly, some nations a little bit more slowly,” the energy secretary said.