Lower Atlantic (PADD 1C) diesel price

PADD 1C runs from Virginia through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, and of the three East Coast subregions it sits closest to the Gulf Coast in both geography and price. The Colonial and Plantation pipelines that carry refined product north from Gulf refineries end here, which usually keeps Lower Atlantic prices nearer the Gulf Coast number than New England or Central Atlantic manage, though still a bit above it once the cost of the pipeline haul is added.

Florida breaks that pattern: the peninsula sits past where those pipelines reach, so its stations depend on marine deliveries into Florida's own ports, a smaller-scale version of New England's situation. Hurricane season is the standout risk, for Gulf refining and for Florida's marine supply alike.

This is the sub-district where the pipeline economics are easiest to see. Colonial and Plantation both originate on the Gulf Coast and run northeast, so a Lower Atlantic terminal in Georgia or the Carolinas is buying Gulf fuel plus a few hundred miles of tariff. The further along the line a terminal sits, the more of that haul is in the price, which is why the Carolinas typically read above Georgia and Georgia above the Gulf itself. What are PADDs explains the district boundaries that put all of them in the same reported number.

Florida is a separate market inside the same district. The pipelines stop short of the peninsula, so Tampa, Port Everglades and Jacksonville take waterborne cargoes and distribute by truck from there. That gives Florida a cost structure closer to New England's than to Georgia's, and it means the state's price can move on a shipping event while the rest of PADD 1C sits still. The reported sub-district average blends the two.

Hurricane season is the risk that dominates the calendar here, and it works on both ends at once. A storm in the Gulf can shut in the refineries and the pipeline origin the Carolinas and Georgia depend on; a storm on the Atlantic side can close the Florida ports the peninsula depends on. Demand also spikes ahead of a landfall as fleets and households top off, which is why the local price sometimes moves before the supply disruption does.

How Lower Atlantic diesel compares with the US average

The gap is Lower Atlantic 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, Lower Atlantic diesel ran 50.0 cents a gallon under the US average ($5.699/gal against $6.199/gal), the lowest of the 10 regional breakouts that week. That is 41.7 cents below its 52-week median of -8.3 cents.

Over the past 52 weeks the gap has run from -50.0 cents (week of Oct 5, 2026) to +2.5 cents (week of Jan 5, 2026). Since EIA's June 2022 survey redesign, Lower Atlantic diesel has priced above the US average in 46 of 226 weekly surveys, and the gap has averaged +0.8 cents a gallon in December through February and -7.9 cents in June through August, so on average Lower Atlantic diesel has sat 8.7 cents higher against the US average in winter than in summer.

The chart above starts in July 2021. Weekly Lower Atlantic prices go back to the week of May 26, 1997 on the diesel price history chart, which also tables every region's annual average and record high and low.