East Coast (PADD 1) diesel price

The Atlantic Coast, EIA's PADD 1, refines only a small share of the diesel it burns, so most of the barrel arrives by pipeline from Gulf Coast refineries or by tanker into East Coast ports. This site splits the district into three pieces, New England, Central Atlantic and Lower Atlantic, each a variation on the same story: import dependence that normally keeps the number a bit above the national average, a modest and fairly steady premium rather than a dramatic one.

Because the region imports so much of its fuel, it feels a pipeline slowdown or a tight tanker market more than a region that refines its own supply. A Colonial Pipeline disruption, maintenance at one of the coast's remaining refineries, or a jump in tanker freight rates are the usual movers here.

East Coast refining has been shrinking for two decades. The plants that remain are clustered in the Philadelphia and Delaware River corridor and around New York Harbor, and each closure has shifted another slice of the region's supply onto the pipeline and the dock. The practical effect is that PADD 1's price is set less by what its own refineries are doing and more by two other things: what the Gulf Coast is charging at the head of the Colonial system, and what it costs to bring a cargo across the Atlantic when the pipeline cannot cover the gap. What are PADDs has the map these districts are drawn on and why the East Coast ended up on the receiving end of it.

Waterborne resupply carries a constraint most regions never think about. Moving fuel from a Gulf Coast refinery to a New York terminal by ship requires a US-built, US-flagged vessel under the Jones Act, and there are few of them, so in a tight week a foreign cargo out of Europe can land cheaper than a domestic one from Texas. That is a structural quirk of the East Coast market rather than a seasonal one, and it is part of why the region's premium persists rather than closing.

The winter overlay is heating oil. The East Coast burns most of the country's heating oil, and heating oil and diesel are the same distillate barrel with different taxes and dye. A cold January therefore raises demand for the exact product trucks run on, at the moment the pipeline haul from the Gulf is longest and the import market is tightest. It is the clearest seasonal pattern on any of the ten district pages this site tracks.

How East Coast diesel compares with the US average

The gap is East Coast diesel minus the US average from the same EIA Monday survey, in cents per gallon, so a move elsewhere in the country shifts it even in a week the local price holds still.

For the week of Oct 5, 2026, East Coast diesel ran 24.8 cents a gallon under the US average ($5.951/gal against $6.199/gal), the third lowest of the 10 regional breakouts that week. That is 28.2 cents below its 52-week median of +3.4 cents.

Over the past 52 weeks the gap has run from -26.1 cents (week of Sep 21, 2026) to +15.4 cents (week of Jan 12, 2026). Since EIA's June 2022 survey redesign, East Coast diesel has priced above the US average in 182 of 226 weekly surveys, and the gap has averaged +13.3 cents a gallon in December through February and +3.5 cents in June through August, so on average East Coast diesel has sat 9.8 cents higher against the US average in winter than in summer.

The chart above starts in July 2021. Weekly East Coast prices go back to the week of Mar 21, 1994 on the diesel price history chart, which also tables every region's annual average and record high and low.