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.

See the East Coast vs. the US average page for how that premium has moved over time.