What’s Trump’s Thinking Behind The ‘Diesel Deal’ With Russia?
Canada's Inflation Rises to 3.1% as Fuel Oil Prices Jump 58% Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author.
He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for… While it is very trendily woke to attack U.S.
President Donald Trump whenever possible, the truth is rarely trendy or woke -- it is usually tough, pragmatic, and increasingly unpopular in today’s world.
Precisely where his recent decision to import Russian diesel into the U.S.
fits into this matrix remains to be seen, but there is a lot more to it than initially meets the eye.
So, what is that exactly? On the face of it, there seems little sense to the deal struck between Washington and Moscow that will see Russia release 300,000 tonnes -- 2.24 million barrels -- of diesel immediately, ‘to the American and global marketplace,’ followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and a further one million tonnes shortly after that.
Trump’s announcement explicitly included a conditional additional 3 million tonnes to be delivered ‘within a short period’, pending refinery conditions.
In context, global diesel supplies have been hit hard by the U.S.-Israel war against Iran.
Before the onset of the war and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Middle East accounted for around 20 percent of all global diesel exports.
That said, the total amount of diesel to be released by Russia in the first phase will be 1.8 million tonnes, which equates to 13.41 million barrels.
If the conditional second phase release occurs, then the total release would increase to 4.8 million tonnes, or 35.76 million barrels -- not per day, in total.
By comparison, the U.S.’s daily consumption of diesel averaged 3.91 million barrels per day (bpd) over 2025, while the world’s daily consumption of diesel in 2025 averaged approximately 27.2 million bpd.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
Comments
Post a Comment