Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Gas Price Problem Is About to Get Much, Much Worse (w/ GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan)

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Gas prices are surging and this time, the outlook is getting even uglier. Tim Miller is joined by Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, to break down why oil prices are climbing, why diesel prices are hitting record levels, and why Americans could be facing $7 and $8 diesel this winter.De Haan explains how the escalating conflict in the Middle East, attacks on Russian refineries, tight diesel inventories, and refinery disruptions are squeezing the global fuel market. Forty-two states are already seeing record diesel prices, while the national gas average is creeping back toward this year’s high.With refineries operating at nearly 98% capacity and diesel inventories 15% below their five-year average, De Haan warns there is very little room for another disruption, especially heading into winter. And despite talk of prices coming down after the midterms, he says there’s no magic date when the underlying problems simply disappear.The day always ends well with Casper. Right now save up to 30% on mattresses and up to 35% on everything else when you go to https://Casper.com

Hey, everybody, it's Tim Mel. We are back with Bullwark Takes. I'm delighted to welcome back. He's had a petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. He's analyzed and tracked oil markets and fuel prices for nearly two decades. You can find him on Substack, a gas price guy. We spoke back in May, and things are hitting the fan again. So thanks for coming back.

How's going, Patrick? Thanks, thanks for having me back, Tim. Yeah, things are certainly hitting the fan. I want to talk a little bit just kind of to pull the lens back. I think when we were speaking back in May, there was a lot of dooming, even on this very channel, about like if the Strait of Hormuz continued how it was, prices getting much, much higher than $100 a barrel. We didn't really see that. Like over the summer, prices kind of came back down a little bit.

Now they're spiking, though, and particularly on the diesel side, you know, it looks really alarming. Like, how do you explain, like, what happened there and why things didn't end up being quite as bad over the summer as people thought? And a lot of analysts were mentioning $150, $200 oil. I never was quite of that personal belief. But the biggest reason on why that didn't happen was that China slash the amount of oil was buying in the open market. Nobody really expected that to happen, kind of inexplicably kind of greatly reduced the amount of oil it was buying.

And suddenly when there's less demand, things didn't look quite as bad. Why things have shifted so much here in the last few weeks and even in the last few days has been a very much reversal of the tone that we saw back in April and May. Back in April and May, the Trump administration was talking deals, you know, on the cusp, several false starts, you know, they were talking, there was dialogue. There was a lot of noise on maybe something happening. This time around, not anything on that front. In fact, the Trump administration, I don't know if I dare say through in the towel, but suggesting that after the midterms, this would magically solve itself, kind of to me is saying, well, you know, we expect it could

take a couple of months, and I didn't hear any real plan to change that. So what has really happened is a shift in tone. There's no longer talk of deals, you know, nothing really on that front. And in the meanwhile, the escalations have gotten a little bit, they spiraled, right? The Houthis have been attacking Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline. They've been attacking potential refineries. They've been trying to take over the Red Sea, the Mandel-Mandep straight. I think I probably butcher that. I've got a lot of different Eastern terminology in my head. But where we are now is the straight remains closed, the hoodies are trying to attack more and take over more, creating more chaos. Oil prices are back above $100 on all of that.

And then the wild card really on diesel worth mentioning. And I know this is not a personal belief. I have to disconnect that as an analyst. But part of the reason diesel has gone apocalyptic is because of Ukraine has found a way to really hit Russia hard. attacking refineries. That has led to rationing in Russia, gas lines, inavailability. Russia tends to produce over 10% of the world's diesel supply. When their refineries get attacked, you know, whether personal beliefs are aside, whether it's warranted or not, there's going to be an impact. And that is why diesel, you know, we are blowing through every

record that we've set. 42 states now are seeing record diesel prices. Yeah, I think this can be a both things can be true on the diesel, right? I mean, the deal for us obviously went up alongside. you know, Brent Crude and others when the war in Iran started. But like this particular, what word did you use, particular apocalyptic spike or whatever that word is. Obviously, you know, it's what's happening in Russia is having an impact on that as well. And who knows, Trump said it. He talked to Zelensky and he was going to stop doing it. Trump makes a lot of promises. So we'll see how that shakes out. Well, and that, but, you know, to both sides here,

you know, why not ask Russia to stop? doing what they're doing either. So, you know, yeah, there's an element of this. Russia is attacking Ukraine and Ukraine is attacking Russia. And that's an increasingly large wildcard. And a lot of people might immediately say, well, wait a minute. We don't get any diesel or oil from Russia. So why is this impacting us? That's, you know, that's kind of the wrong stance here is that it's a global economy. Guess what? A lot of our biggest partners, Europe, Asia, China and India, buy a lot of diesel from Russia. When they can't get it from Russia, where are they going to go? I mean, their economies can't just grind to a halt.

So increasingly, they're going to buy the same diesel, either that we are exporting or is available to us. And in the last week alone, government data out today showed that the U.S. is rising to meet that need. We exported 87 million barrels of oil and refined products in the last week alone. This message is brought to by Casper. So you know what becomes more important the busier life gets? Your bed. Your bed becomes exceptionally important. When you're working long days and juggling everything else life throws at you, there's nothing better

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But, yeah, obviously the hoodies and also some Iran backed militias in Iraq going after Saudi. You mentioned that pipeline. I spoke with people who are more in the commodities game than me and know more about this. We talk about the potential catastrophe. That could be depending we don't fully know how much damage is another that pipeline. And then you mentioned the Red Sea, you know, for people to think about it.

about the way that oil can come out of of the Gulf, right? Like you can go through the Persian Gulf, which has to go through the Strait of Formos. Or on the other side of Saudi Arabia, there's the Red Sea, and there's kind of another route out through there. But if the hoodies are, you know, if you have the hoodies bombing on one side and the Iranians on the other side,

that increases the risk premium on both sides. Yeah, I mean, I've seen those maps that are just exing out every possible escape route for oil. So, yeah, it's increasingly problematic, which is why we're dealing with this sudden, resurgence in oil prices, which are at their highest level in months. So, you know, it's a different take from the U.S. kind of from my stance, throwing in the towel and kicking the can down the road saying, well, prices will go down after the election. There's not a magic date I can circle on my

calendar. It's not like if you have a problem, you wake up the next day and it's solved, right? This is something that is going to take a little bit more than just circling a date on a calendar for it to get fixed. Yeah, and even if it magically, you know, even if we used reserves and magically after the election, you know, a deal gets struck. It still takes time for all that stuff to get back online. You know, there's lags. You know, absolutely. And diesel inventories are running 15% below their five-year average, and we're going

into winter. Winter, by the way, is when diesel demand is higher because diesel and home heating oil are essentially the same thing. And a lot of Americans that don't have natural gas or propane, they use home heating oil. So if you're listening and you heat your home with heating oil, especially in areas of the Northeast, probably expect some sticker. shock, $7 and $8 are going to be possible this winter.

Let's go back to the gas prices. So this was, I think, yesterday from Tom Closa, who's the energy advisor for Gulf Oil. He said the next 24 hours, we'll see staggering increases at the pump for both gasoline and diesel, fuel margins have yet to catch up with previous wholesale hikes, watch for huge increases in the Great Lakes and Rocky Mountain States in particular. How does that mesh with what you're saying? 100%. You know, Tom has worked alongside Tom for a while. I have a great respect for him and he's 100% right.

So, you know, I've been actually already today sharing out a lot of price hikes. The one thing about GasBuddy is we're seeing gas prices reported to us by our users in real time. And, you know, I've been tweeting out alerts trying to forewarn people. This is what we're seeing on the ground. This is happening. And he's 100% right. I mean, a lot of areas already, we're seeing gasoline prices in Michigan take, for example. they just shot up to $4.59 Monday. Now they're going up to $4.99. And diesel, it's even worse.

Price in Michigan, I think, for diesel $6.79. We're going to get close to seeing some of those $7 diesel signs in the Midwest. Now the Midwest has a particular disadvantage. And that's how we saw a major refinery in the region outside Chicago had a power loss. Nothing that running hard did. When utility loses power, it's nothing you can do. Refinery is, backup generators, but it's only for when you lose power, those backup generators help you power the computer equipment to have an orderly shutdown. And that refinery is really why the Midwest is going to glow red on a map for the next week or two. Yeah, I mean, I saw something this morning. I think I forget it was from you or just a regular normie that I follow on social

media, but in Ohio, it was like from when they drove to when they did the school drop off from the kids to when they came home, it was up 40 cents and like significant hikes. Yeah, and by the way, that was a laggard. That I saw probably the exact same tweet you did. It was 419. They said yesterday, and now it's 459. And now tomorrow, that station could be 499. What about in the Rocky Mountains?

Why are people kind of highlighting what's happening over there? Do you have a sense for that? Very much a tie to inland communities. You know, more refining snags in the Midwest. They tend to domino into the interior. So that's not the place to be right now. The plain states, even all, the way up to Maine. Gas prices are going up all because of a combination of geopolitical tensions.

And then like I said, just a couple of refinery kinks here, there is no margin for error. I've never seen refineries running this hard. And I know a lot of folks would say, well, you know, this is going to happen. Well, you know, it's design limitations, but refineries are operating at 98% of their capacity. We haven't seen that higher rate all summer this century. Wow. I was looking at your chart at the Gas Buddy Line chart. And it looked like I don't know, maybe probably around the last time we talked, honestly. So, hey, maybe we're a reverse jinx and this will be good for people. But you hit the high for the year, which was, you know, somewhere around, what, 4,56 a gallon or something.

It seems like we're creeping up to that. Do you think that we could have a high for the year coming ahead of us? I think so. I mean, just the time we've been talking here already, the national average is up another half a penny. I'm watching it, unfortunately, every five minutes we update. Now we're at 439. So we're, you know, we're less than 20 cents a gallon away from that. I think we could hit that by this weekend with all these price increases.

And keep in mind, that national average, that's a laggard. You know, that's representative of an average of 150,000 stations. So by the way, to see it up three cents a gallon so far today, that sounds insignificant. But for an average of 150,000 stations, that's about as dramatic as it gets. Now, that sounds crazy to me, actually. I was like I had a producer, Totsi, wrote this for. from a couple hours ago, it's 437. Yeah, now we're up to 439.

And diesel is even worse. I think by the end of the day, by the way, a lot of people, you know, politics plays a role. So a lot of people have been looking at the price of diesel, which is at record levels. Nominally, diesel's at, I think, 635 before we started talking. And by the end of the day, by the end of the day, I think that we could take out the 2020 peak if you adjust for inflation. So diesel's already at a record level.

but a lot of people say, well, inflation. They have a point. There's another way to look at this. But by the end of the day, we could completely wipe out that 20-20 too high if you adjust for inflation. Wow. Anything else that didn't ask you about? You should want to flag for people?

Boy, you know, it feels pretty stressful and pessimistic to talk about this. But there's not a whole lot of great out there right now and, you know, tell folks to buckle up and, you know, stay tuned to your channel. You have me on and I'll be tweeting out regular updates. So, you know, through thick or thin, I'll be there. updating the numbers. All right. We appreciate it. It's Patrick DeHan over at GasBuddy. You can follow him out at GasPrice Guy at Substack or at GasBuddy and a bunch of all the social media outlets. I appreciate it, man. Thanks, Tim.