Chevron Chief Says Oil Buffers Are Gone as Diesel Tightness Lingers

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth warned that depleted oil inventories and government reserves have left the global market more vulnerable to disruption. He told CNBC on Oct. 7 that those buffers had been “drained” since the Iran war began in late February.

The International Energy Agency said in its October report that diesel markets are likely to stay tight well into 2027. It expects depleted diesel stocks will not be rebuilt beyond normal seasonal swings before the second half of that year, with a recovery in Middle East fuel supply a key factor.

In the U.S., the average diesel price reached a record $6.53 a gallon on Sept. 22, according to AAA data cited by CBS News. The IEA also forecast that high prices would cut global oil demand by 2.6 million barrels a day in 2026, with diesel accounting for about a quarter of the decline.

Governments have tried several measures to ease the squeeze. The Group of Seven agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude and diesel from emergency reserves over four months, and President Donald Trump later dropped a proposed U.S. diesel export ban.

Trump also announced that Russia’s Vladimir Putin had agreed to supply more than 4 million tons of diesel in stages. The U.S. Treasury issued a license waiving sanctions on Russian diesel through April 7, 2027.

The IEA said easing Russian export restrictions is unlikely to materially change the global diesel balance because the main bottleneck is a lack of working refinery capacity. Wirth said stockpile releases can buy time but do not solve constrained flows from major producing areas.