Running on Empty
EF
Snapshot26 Sep 2026

Running on empty

For thirty years, Western governments let their oil refineries close and came to rely on imported diesel. In 2026 two wars cut off the supply they now depend on. Diesel has hit record prices across Europe and the US, stocks are below normal, and pumps in France are running dry.

Figures as of 27 September 2026. Prices, stocks and outages are dated snapshots, not a live feed.

DieselUK AVG
Sale · 55 L tank£78.82
Litres55.00
Price per litre143.30p
All-time record
28 Feb 202626 Sep 2026 +55p since the Iran war began Old record 199.09p · 25 Jun 2022
PetrolPrices.com, 26 Sep 2026 (199.11p). RAC, 25 Sep 2026 (+55p since 28 Feb). Start value derived from the RAC change. Sale = 55 litres × price.

Supply routes · status now

As reported 11–26 Sep 2026
Strait of HormuzRestrictedAbout a quarter of seaborne oil trade passed here in 2025. Iran has attacked and threatened shipping since 28 Feb.
Saudi East–West pipelineShutMain Hormuz bypass, up to 7m barrels/day. Closed on 11 Sep after drone strikes launched from Iraq.
Bab al-Mandab (Red Sea)ThreatenedHouthis captured Mocha and Perim island at the mouth of the strait in early September.
Russian refineries & Baltic portsUnder attackUkrainian drones hit Moscow's refinery on 20 Sep. Ust-Luga and Primorsk were struck five times in March.
US diesel exportsBan debatedThe US ships about 1.2–1.6m barrels/day of distillate. Most goes to Latin America, but Europe's share is rising. Washington is weighing an export ban.
01
1992 – 2023 · the commitments

The policies

Before a single refinery closed, governments signed up to a direction of travel: treaties, carbon targets and net zero laws. None of them ordered a refinery to shut. Together they set the costs and signals that decided which refineries were worth keeping. This chapter is those commitments only.

FeaturedUN General Assembly · 25 Sep 2015

Agenda 2030

“Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”

193UN member states adopted it
17Sustainable Development Goals
169targets, most due by 2030

The goals that bear on fuel

  • 7
    Affordable and clean energyTarget 7.2: “By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.”
  • 12
    Responsible consumptionTarget 12.c: “Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption… including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those harmful subsidies.”
  • 13
    Climate actionTarget 13.2: “Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.”

What it is and isn't. Agenda 2030 is a UN resolution, not a law. It orders no refinery to close. Its role is the framework: national carbon prices, net zero laws and car bans followed within a few years, and those are in the timeline below.

Read Agenda 2030 on the UN website
UN / globalEuropean UnionUnited Kingdom
02
Refining capacity 2024 · who sells diesel, who keeps it

Where the world's refining sits

Before looking at what closed, here is where the world's refining is today: the 20 countries with the most capacity, and what each does with its diesel. Most of it sits outside the countries that shut plants, so the question is whether those refiners still sell abroad.

The 20 biggest refining countries

Circle size is crude refining capacity in 2024, in barrels a day. Colour is what each country does with its diesel. Tap a circle, or a row in the table below.

Capacity: Energy Institute Statistical Review, 2024 data (via energtx). Sized by capacity, not plant count: one plant such as India's Jamnagar can out-refine a whole country, and counts are not published on a common basis. Map outline: Natural Earth.

Who keeps their diesel, and who sells it

In a normal year the big exporters sell their spare diesel to whoever pays most. In 2026 that changed: several started keeping it at home, or were cut off. These four points are why Europe is exposed.

Country · capacityDiesel roleWhere its diesel goesWhat changed in 2026What it means for the UK and Europe

Roles are our summary of each country's normal diesel trade, not an official classification.

03
Refineries closed · diesel now imported

What was switched off

Europe has closed or converted about 30 refineries since 2009, and lost about 490,000 barrels a day of capacity in 2025 alone: about 400,000 announced, plus Lindsey when it failed. Pick a country to see what shut and how much of its diesel now comes from abroad. The US, marked ★, is the contrast: it kept its refining.

Country by country

04
2024 – Sep 2026

Two wars on the supply chain

With less refining at home, the West was buying diesel from further away, through fewer routes. In 2026 two wars hit those routes at once. Ukraine is striking Russian refineries and export ports. The US–Israel war with Iran has restricted Hormuz and brought attacks on Gulf refineries. At the May peak about 9% of the world's refining output was lost, and Brent crude has swung between about $70 and $118.

Brent crude, $/barrel, 2026

Reported data points only. Not a continuous daily series.
Swipe for more →

Refinery outage tracker · Sep 2024 – Sep 2026

0 outages logged
3.52mbarrels/day of Middle East refining offline at the peak (7 May 2026). In August runs were still about 2.6m below pre-war (Kpler)
~1.6mbarrels/day of Russian refining lost to drone strikes: August 2026 runs of about 3.8m against a 5.3–5.5m norm (July: 3.6m, the lowest since 2002)
~9%of world refining output lost to the two wars at the May peak, including run cuts from crude shortages. Plants actually hit were about 4%
Ukrainian strike on Russia Iran war strike Fire, explosion or failure
Swipe for more →

Middle East peak and ~9%: Reuters analysis, 13 May 2026 (which put Russian outages at about 0.7m b/d for January to May). Russian July runs: Bloomberg via the Moscow Times, 3 Aug 2026. Incidents are compiled from your research list plus this page's sources. Those marked CHECKED were confirmed against a second report.

Warned off, then struck

On 13 September Trump publicly told Ukraine to stop hitting Russian diesel. Seven days later Ukraine launched its largest drone attack on Moscow and shut the capital's refinery. The strikes have carried on since.

Video: YouTube Short. Watch on YouTube
Ukraine's positionKyiv treats refineries as legitimate military targets, because Russia regularly attacks Ukraine's own energy infrastructure.

“Let's not send out the diesel”

Trump at the UN on 22 September, floating a ban on US diesel exports.

Why
US diesel hit a record $6.53 a gallon, stocks are 13% below normal, and farmers and truckers are hurting ahead of November's midterms.
Pushback
Refiners and his own Energy Secretary say a ban would cut refinery output and push world prices up: “The blunt tool of banning diesel exports definitely doesn't work.”
Now
A flat ban was denied on 23 September. On 25 September refiners were asked to cut exports voluntarily instead.
UK
The US supplies about a third of the UK's diesel imports. Even voluntary cuts mean less reaching Britain.

05
Pump prices & stockpiles · snapshot 26 Sep 2026

The diesel squeeze

Chapter 3 was capacity lost over decades; chapter 4 was supply cut this year. This chapter is what that has done to diesel itself, country by country: what it costs at the pump, how much is imported, how much is held in reserve, and where pumps are running short.

Who feels the squeeze

Imports · pump prices · stocks · shortages, country by country

Worldwide, about 6% of diesel supply capacity has been taken out. That is enough to push prices to records everywhere, because diesel is priced on a world market. Running short is different: that falls on the countries that import their diesel.

Example · a haulier with 30 lorries
+£572,000a year in extra diesel since February
+£279to fill one 500-litre tank (£717 → £996)
+£8,400to fill all 30 tanks once
+£367a week, per lorry
12 weeksfor the extra fuel to eat a whole year's profit
  1. Profit becomes loss. On a 2% margin each lorry made about £4,200 a year. The extra fuel turns that into a loss of about £15,000 per lorry, around £445,000 across the fleet.
  2. It can't pass it on. Breaking even means raising rates about 9%. Only about one haulier in ten can pass fuel costs on in full.
  3. Lorries get parked. Cash goes first: fuel is paid for up front, customers pay weeks later. Parking the least profitable lorries is the quickest fix, and it takes capacity off the road. About 150 UK hauliers failed between January and July.
Illustrative. Assumes 44-tonne artics running 75,000 miles a year at 8.3 mpg (about 41,000 litres each); UK diesel 143.3p (28 Feb) to 199.11p (26 Sep); VAT reclaimed, so running costs rise 46.5p a litre (tank fills shown at the pump, with VAT); fuel about 22% of costs; 2% margin.
The world picture: how much diesel supply is out, and what more could go

Share of the world's diesel supply taken out · Sep 2024 – Sep 2026

0% of global diesel supply capacity

What more could go

What each level would mean

Our framework, not a forecast. Each band is anchored to things that have already happened somewhere in 2026 or in past oil shocks. Switch on the scenarios above to see which band they reach.

      Live dataPrices here are a researched snapshot. A live feed needs a paid fuel-price API. The EU Weekly Oil Bulletin (Thursdays) and the EIA weekly update (Mondays) are free sources to refresh from by hand.

      Did the biggest importers get hit hardest?

      Setting chapter 3's import shares against the 2026 prices and stocks above.

      Supports the case
        Cuts against it

          What the evidence shows. Import dependence tracks physical shortage and stock strain. It does not decide the price, which is set on a global market and has hit records in exporting countries too.

          06
          What-if scenarios · 30 / 60 / 90 days

          The next 90 days

          Where it could go from here. Choose a country, a scenario and a time horizon. Each impact level is drawn from measures governments have already used somewhere in 2026: a scenario framework, not a forecast. Diesel drives the transport, food and industry rows; some precedents, such as power cuts and cooking gas, come from wider energy shortages.

          Scenario

          60
          30 days60 days90 days

          Has this happened before?

          Yes, several times. The pattern is consistent: a shortage of diesel alone stops goods, food and power first. Limits on people's movement have come only when oil as a whole ran short. Each case is tagged by what ran short: Road fuel diesel and petrol at the pump, Diesel for power generators, All oil the whole supply.

            1. It moves in days. In 2000 the UK went from the first blockade to three-quarters of filling stations dry in five days.
            2. Goods stop before people. In every diesel-only case, shops, farms, hospitals and generators were hit before anyone was told to stay home.
            3. Movement limits follow a shortage of all oil. Car-free Sundays, petrol rationing and school closures all came when crude or foreign currency ran out, not diesel alone.
            4. Freight and emergency services get fuel first. The UK in 2000 and Sri Lanka in 2022 both prioritised them. If rationing comes, private driving is cut first.
            ✕
            Everything we found, including what cuts against the thesis

            The counter-case

            Critics will raise these points. Each one is paired with the evidence that answers it, or with an open question where the evidence is still missing.

            Sources