HOUSTON — The Trump administration plans to introduce more diesel into the market as fuel prices rise, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC on Monday.
“We have some ideas on diesel that we could bring more diesel to market,” Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in an interview. “I think we’ll see that happen before long.”
Diesel prices jumped about 40% to $5.29 a gallon, the highest level since 2022, as the U.S. war against Iran triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history. Diesel is used by trucks and freight trains to transport goods to markets.
Wright said the United States has no plans to limit diesel exports as prices rise.
“You don’t want to interrupt the free flow of energy trade,” Wright said. “We refine more oil than we can consume. If we blocked exports, we would be forced to close our own refineries and produce less oil and fewer refined products. That would not be productive for the United States, and certainly not for the world.”
Wright said earlier Monday that emergency releases of oil stocks could reach up to 3 million barrels per day to deal with the supply disruption triggered by the war in Iran.
The United States will release about 1 million to 1.5 million bpd of its strategic oil reserve, Wright said at S&P Global’s CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. Emergency stock releases could reach almost 3 million bpd in total, he said.
“There’s going to be between a million and a million and a half barrels a day out of U.S. inventories,” Wright said. “And we’ll get maybe close to 3 million barrels total.”
Oil from the U.S. Strategic Reserve began flowing in Friday afternoon, Wright said. “Japan has also progressed quickly, some countries a little slower,” the Energy Secretary said.
More than 30 nations in the The International Energy Agency agrees on March 11 to inject 400 million barrels of oil onto the world market. The United States will release 172 million barrels from its strategic reserve as part of this effort.
Tanker traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz has plummeted as Iran attacks commercial vessels. The strait is the world’s most important shipping route for oil exports, with around 20% of global supplies passing through this waterway before the war. Iran has also targeted the energy infrastructure of the Arab Gulf states.
Oil prices have surged more than 30% since the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel on February 28. Prices have plunged Monday after the president Donald Trump declared Iran and the The United States led productive negotiations. Trump said he would wait five days before striking Iranian power plants.
Wright described the oil supply disruption as a short-term challenge. He said prices have not yet risen enough to depress global demand.
“Markets do what they do,” Wright said. “Prices rose to send a signal to everyone who could produce more, please produce more. Prices have not yet risen enough to cause significant demand destruction.”
