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Comment by sleepyguy | Hacker News Reader

The Ukraine angle is another cheap shot by CBS (state sponsored news). Prices are rising because of Trumps adventurism in the the ME and now that the Houthies will likely control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, world markets are reacting.

There is nothing stopping US refineries from producing more diesel, you can use both sweet and sour, this is speculators squeezing the markets.

What a great time it should be to electrify heavy transportation. If they can do it in mining and construction, why can't transportation...

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Genuinely curious...the output drop in refining from Russia is not also a large factor in diesel (and other Petro) price hikes?

Or are you saying the Ukraine drone strikes have not affected the output at a scale where it matters globally?

A lot of the Ukraine strikes affect Russia only. Russia has changed to import a lot more, and exporting less (I do not know the balance - most refining countries both import and export fuel from different locations), but the vast majority of the oil refined in Russia was used in Russia and they are unable to replace it.

Ukraine strikes to impact the world price. However most of the impact is in Russia, elsewhere the effect is less. Iran is larger effect because the middle east as a more significant share of global oil. (both have an effect, but Iran is larger)

Russia hasn't exported products in over a month now. If Diesel prices hit $6 today, it's purely because 6 months after the US president started his war on Iran, Iranian forces in Yemen have routed the Saudis and cut off the second of two SA oil export routes, damaging a vital pipeline in the process, sending crude to $100 and beyond.

Russia stopped exporting diesel due to Ukrainian strikes. That badly hurt Turkey and to lesser extent Brazil. And Brazil started to get diesel from US allowing US companies to make a lot of profit. So Ukrainian strikes clearly affect global prices.

But then it also makes Chinese EV including trucks extremely attractive replacement. So China making a profit as well.

Check historical prices of diesel. Diesel has been up since April 2026 when Trump launched his war against Iran regardless of what Ukraine has been doing. This is the same story with weapons, the Trump administrations blames Ukraine for their lack of Weapons to fight Iran, if you look at the weapons they are using to fight Iran, 95% of them were never given to Ukraine.

> There is nothing stopping US refineries from producing more diesel

Aren't they already producing as much as they can? Which is not sufficient given that globally a significant fraction of refining capacity is offline.

> If they can do it in mining and construction, why can't transportation...

Because supply side. Can't have our oil barons losing out.

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