It’s happened. Gas station marquees have started showing prices at $9.99 per gallon – the highest they’ll go.
Bloomberg reported this week that this number was up in lights above the pumps of a Shell station in the Serra Mesa neighborhood of San Diego, Calif. Patrick De Hann, the chief of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, told Tommy Tucker of Audacy station WWL in New Orleans this Tuesday that Gas Buddy reported prices in California were going up to $9.99, with diesel prices at $8.18.
De Haan said that $9.99 figure is “basically as high as it can go – the pump literally can’t display the extra digits.” Bloomberg said that prices could still go higher, even if the signs don’t reflect the $10-and-over figures. Prices for owning and operating cars in general are also up this year, Audacy reported this week.
By Wednesday, De Haan said on X that average U.S. gas prices had just reached $4.40 per gallon. He said that’s the highest they’ve been since Memorial Day, and that diesel has hit $6.35 per gallon.
GasBuddy runs the “America’s Added Fuel Cost Clock” to track gas prices spikes in the wake of President Donald Trump declaring that the U.S. had joined Israel to attack Iran in late February. Iran’s blockades of the Strait of Hormuz, an important oil transportation route, contributed to prices being $4 or more per gallon in the U.S. for much of the summer.
“Since March 1, 2026, gasoline and diesel prices have remained significantly above their comparable 2025 levels,” said the cost clock page. “Using GasBuddy price data and estimates of U.S. fuel consumption, these live clocks track how much more Americans have spent on gasoline and diesel compared with the same period last year.”
As of Wednesday, the clock showed more than $111 billion in additional U.S. fuel expenses since March 1.
While Americans driving around passenger vehicles might not be thinking much about diesel fuel prices, De Haan said they are having a significant impact on everyday lives too. In the case of diesel price spikes, the cause can be traced to the war in Ukraine, according to De Haan.
“There was another Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian… oil refinery overnight, knocking it offline,” he explained to Tucker. “You know, I don’t take a stance what Ukraine is doing – obviously Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, and Ukraine has finally found a way to really fight back, because Russians are now dealing with gas lines and fuel rationing. The unfortunate downside is that it’s impacting prices globally, because Russia is a huge producer of diesel… one in nine barrels of diesel globally.”
How does Ukraine’s kneecapping of Russia’s diesel production impact us here in the U.S.?
“You really should care,” said De Haan. “You talk about going out to eat, your next delivery, you order something online, you go to the grocery store, this economy runs on diesel. Construction equipment, tractors, trains, trucks, all of it runs on diesel.”
De Haan said the clearest way for prices to come down is for these military conflicts to resolve.
“Everything’s going to be impacted and until this is a problem that gets tackled,” he told Tucker. He added that “the [Trump] administration has said ‘after the midterms’ but let’s face it... if you don’t touch the problem it doesn’t get better.”
