100 Million Barrels: G7 Releases Emergency Fuel After Trump's Diesel Ban Threat
October 3, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The G7 agreed Friday to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil from emergency reserves, days after the Trump administration threatened to ban US diesel exports to Europe. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright had already said European countries released only a fraction of the stocks they pledged in March.
100 million barrels. That is what the G7 agreed to release from emergency reserves on Friday, after the Trump administration threatened to ban all US diesel exports.
The agreement came after an emergency video call convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, who currently chairs the G7. Under the deal, members will release 50 million barrels of diesel and 50 million barrels of crude oil, coordinated through the International Energy Agency. A frontloaded substantial diesel release will begin within the first 20 days, with the full deployment spread over four months.
The uncomfortable question is what it took to get there. The IEA had already ordered a record 400 million barrels released in March, to calm the oil price shock sparked by US-Israeli attacks on Iran. European members pledged 107 million barrels at that point, 68 percent of it fuel, according to CNBC. But US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said this week that "several European member countries have released only a fraction of the crude oil and petroleum products they pledged."
Trump made the pressure explicit. He posted on Truth Social that Europe had "agreed to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel Oil" and that the process would start "immediately." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had told European partners on Thursday to "accelerate delivery on their existing commitments and make additional supplies immediately available." Within 24 hours, Macron convened the call and the joint statement was out.
The price pressure behind the crisis is severe. US diesel hit $6.50 per gallon last week, nearly $3 higher than the same time last year, The National News reported. In the UK, the average pump price reached a record £2 a litre on Friday, the Guardian reported, with the RAC motoring group putting the cost of filling an average family car at £110, nearly £32 more than before the Iran war. In France, diesel is $10 a gallon, NPR reported. Across Europe, the pump price has reached a record €2.24 per litre, up from €1.59 before the Iran war began on February 28.
Three crises converged to create the shortage. Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries have pushed Russian fuel output to 20-year lows, the Guardian reported. Disruption from the Iran war has choked Middle Eastern refining. US producers filled the gap, exporting a record 1.9 million barrels a week to overseas buyers in early August, which pushed American distillate stockpiles to their lowest seasonal levels since 1996 and sent US pump prices above $5.85 a gallon for the first time in early September.
The exposure on the European side is acute. IEA data show the US supplied roughly half of all EU diesel imports in August. Oxford Economics analysts estimated, according to The National News, that a full US export ban could push European wholesale prices up by 40 to 50 percent and add as much as 0.4 percentage points to US core inflation in 2027. Macron had already described a potential ban as "catastrophic."
Macquarie Group's Walt Chancellor told CNBC that the stockpile release would not fix the underlying problem. "The core issue the US faces is not a diesel problem. Nor is it a refined product problem," he said. "What is the solution then? In short, more oil through the Strait of Hormuz and out of the Middle East. Anything short of that is really just shuffling deck chairs."
Europe had the fuel. It needed a threat to use it.
Published October 3, 2026 · Frisian News