Who Is Making Billions From the 2026 Global Diesel Crisis?

Every time a South African truck fills its tanks in 2026, more money is disappearing into a global diesel market that has become seriously tight.

In this article:

• Why the global diesel market has become so tight
• Which parts of the fuel industry are making more money
• How diesel shortages are changing who gets supplied first
• Why truckers, farmers and transport operators are being squeezed
• What the global crisis means for South Africa

The uncomfortable part is that while truckers, farmers, miners and transport operators are being squeezed by soaring fuel costs, some companies sitting on the right refining capacity are making billions more.

So where is the money going?

And when there aren’t enough diesel barrels to satisfy everyone, who gets them?

The answer isn’t simply “the oil companies”. The 2026 crisis has created a chain of winners and losers stretching from oilfields and refineries to traders, shipping companies, governments and, ultimately, the people paying for transport.

The world doesn’t simply have expensive oil

The biggest mistake is to look only at crude oil.

The 2026 problem has increasingly become a diesel and refining capacity crisis.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says global seaborne diesel and gasoil exports averaged about 4.7 million barrels a day during the first eight months of 2026, down 10% year-on-year.

In August, combined diesel exports from Russia and the Middle East were down 75% compared with a year earlier.

Russia has lost refinery capacity following repeated Ukrainian attacks, while the conflict involving Iran and disruption to Middle Eastern energy routes have taken more refined products off the international market.

The result is a shrinking pool of diesel that the rest of the world has to fight over.

And that is where prices start behaving very differently.

Refiners are sitting in the sweet spot

When diesel becomes scarce, the refinery suddenly becomes one of the most valuable parts of the oil chain.

The IEA says diesel crack spreads climbed above $100 a barrel in September in both the US Gulf Coast and Northwest Europe.

The crack spread is broadly the difference between the value of refined products and the crude used to make them.

In plain trucking language: the raw material isn’t necessarily where all the extra money is being made. The bottleneck is.

And some refiners are reporting eye-watering numbers.

Read | No fuel price relief planned as October threatens another hit for SA truckers

Marathon Petroleum

Marathon Petroleum reported second-quarter 2026 net income of $5.1 billion, compared with $1.2 billion in the same quarter of 2025.

Its refining and marketing margin more than doubled to $36.33 a barrel, from $17.58.

The company generated $6.7 billion in adjusted refining and marketing EBITDA and returned $2.8 billion to shareholders during the quarter.

That doesn’t mean Marathon created the diesel shortage.

It shows what happens when a major refiner has product available while the market desperately needs it.

Valero

Valero reported second-quarter net income of $3.7 billion, compared with $714 million a year earlier.

Its refining segment generated $4.5 billion in operating income, compared with $1.3 billion in the same quarter of 2025.

The company also returned about $2.6 billion to shareholders.

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil’s Energy Products division earned $5.465 billion in the second quarter.

The company said stronger refining margins contributed $3.18 billion to the year-on-year improvement in Energy Products earnings.

That is the money trail worth watching.

The diesel shortage is hurting consumers, but the same shortage is dramatically increasing the value of available refining capacity.

So who is actually benefiting?

There isn’t one single winner.

The biggest documented beneficiaries include refiners with spare or functioning capacity, oil producers selling into higher-priced markets, commodity traders able to exploit price differences, and companies involved in storing and transporting physical fuel.

But the benefits are uneven.

An oil-producing country can receive a higher price for every barrel while simultaneously losing revenue because refinery damage or shipping disruption means it cannot export as many barrels.

Russia is a good example.

Higher diesel prices should ordinarily benefit a major producer and refiner.

But Russia has also suffered substantial refinery disruption and has restricted some diesel exports.

The IEA expects Russian refinery throughput to remain significantly depressed through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027.

So high prices don’t automatically mean everyone producing oil is winning.

Sometimes there simply aren’t enough barrels left to sell.

America has become critical to the diesel supply

This is where the crisis gets particularly interesting.

The United States has become one of the world’s most important sources of diesel at exactly the time American consumers are facing record fuel prices.

US refineries have been running extremely hard.

S&P Global says US diesel shipments to Europe reached about 360,000 barrels a day during the third quarter, compared with roughly 250,000 barrels a day before the current crisis.

America therefore faces a difficult choice:

Keep exporting diesel and help the international market, or keep more fuel at home and protect American consumers?

A proposed US diesel export restriction could have consequences far beyond America’s borders.

S&P Global estimates that an export ban could strand about 1.5 million barrels a day of diesel in the US, potentially forcing refiners to reduce crude processing by around 1.9 million barrels a day.

That could mean less fuel production overall.

Europe is already warning Washington about the consequences because it has become increasingly dependent on American diesel.

And this is where the global diesel fight gets very real.

Who gets the diesel when there isn’t enough?

A global commodity market doesn’t necessarily allocate scarce diesel according to who needs it most.

It allocates it according to price, contracts, logistics and access to supply.

A European buyer may be able to pay more than an African buyer.

A large industrial customer may have a long-term supply contract protecting its deliveries while smaller buyers face shortages.

A country with strategic fuel reserves has another advantage over one that depends heavily on spot-market imports.

And a refinery will generally look at where its product can generate the best commercial return, subject to contracts, regulations and logistical constraints.

That creates a brutal possibility.

The diesel doesn’t necessarily go to the country that needs it most.

It goes where the market can support the economics of getting it there.

Who gets priced out?

This is where truckers enter the story.

Road freight cannot simply switch off its diesel consumption.

A truck hauling freight still has to move.

A mine cannot easily replace hundreds of diesel-powered machines overnight.

A farmer cannot postpone harvest indefinitely because diesel has become expensive.

And a construction company cannot simply park every diesel-powered machine.

These industries therefore have less flexibility than a household deciding whether to take an unnecessary trip.

Eventually, however, something has to give.

Operators raise transport rates.

Businesses cut margins.

Farmers pass costs into food.

Mines reconsider production.

Consumers pay more for transported goods.

Or weaker operators simply stop being viable.

That is demand destruction: prices eventually become so high that some users can no longer afford the same level of consumption.

And South Africa?

South Africa sits on the wrong side of this global equation.

We are not large enough to dictate the international diesel market.

We are largely price takers.

When international refined-product prices surge, South Africa feels the shock through the fuel-price mechanism, with the rand/dollar exchange rate adding another layer.

The September 2026 adjustment illustrates the problem.

The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources increased diesel by 293.90 cents per litre for 0.05% sulphur diesel and 314.90 cents per litre for 0.005% sulphur diesel.

A 83.28 cents-per-litre Slate Levy was also implemented after the cumulative slate balance reached a negative R9.519 billion at the end of July.

For a truck carrying hundreds of litres, that isn’t pocket change.

It is an operating-cost shock.

And unlike a passenger car owner, a heavy truck operator cannot simply decide to use half a tank and turn around.

The diesel has to go in.

The people paying the bill aren’t necessarily the people making the money

That is perhaps the most uncomfortable part of the 2026 diesel story.

Marathon, Valero and ExxonMobil’s results demonstrate that extraordinary refining margins can translate into billions of dollars of additional earnings.

Shareholders can benefit through dividends and share buybacks.

Oil producers can benefit from higher commodity prices.

Traders can find opportunities in extreme price differences and volatility.

Shipping and storage companies can benefit from disrupted supply chains.

Governments can collect fuel taxes and levies.

Meanwhile, the trucker is looking at the pump.

The farmer is looking at the pump.

The miner is looking at the pump.

And ultimately, the consumer is paying for the diesel contained in almost everything that moves.

Is someone deliberately pushing diesel prices higher?

This is where we need to separate benefiting from a crisis from causing it.

The financial evidence clearly shows that some companies are benefiting enormously from the current refining environment.

But that alone does not prove those companies engineered the shortage.

The 2026 supply squeeze has identifiable physical causes: refinery damage, geopolitical conflict, disrupted shipping routes, reduced exports and depleted inventories.

The IEA says global oil inventories have fallen by 507 million barrels since February, while the refining system is already operating under enormous pressure.

That is a genuine supply problem.

But once a shortage exists, the economics become very different.

Scarcity creates pricing power.

And whoever controls the scarce part of the supply chain can make substantially more money.

The bigger battle is only starting

The question for South African truckers isn’t simply whether diesel will be expensive next month.

It is whether the world is entering a period where access to diesel becomes more important than the headline price.

If American exports are restricted, Europe will have to find replacement barrels.

If Russian refinery output remains depressed, another major supplier remains constrained.

If Middle Eastern exports cannot recover, another important source stays out of the market.

And if inventories continue falling, buyers will increasingly compete for every available cargo.

That creates a hierarchy.

Countries with money, storage, strategic reserves and strong purchasing power have more options.

Countries and industries with thin margins have fewer.

For trucking, that is the real danger.

Because when the world doesn’t have enough diesel, the question eventually changes from:

“How much does a litre cost?” to: “Can I still afford to put it in my tank?”