The real story of why diesel and gasoline prices have risen | Eastern NC Now

Democrats and their mouthpieces in the MSM propaganda media want to use tunnel vision on the issue of high diesel and gasoline prices, and turn it into a political weapon.  The reality is a lot more complex and comes back to government actions not even being mentioned by these sources.

Diesel and gasoline trade in world markets.  When prices go up or down one place, they tend to do so around the world.  Europe, for example is now seeing a record high in its diesel prices, and gasoline has soared, too, along with aviation fuel.  Part of it has to do with the supply of petroleum. reduced on the world market by two wars, one between Russia and Ukraine and one in Iran.

But the big factor is refining capacity and the resulting decrease in refined petroleum products on the world market.  When refineries go offline, their customers have to look for those products elsewhere creating more demand chasing reduced supply.  That translates to higher prices.

Part of the problem of the supply of refined product problem has to do with war.  A major Saudi refinery that has exported refined products is offline.  But Ukraine's successful campaign to hit Russian refineries with drones has had an even bigger impact.  Russia used to export a lot of diesel and other refined products.  Now it is having to import them, and it needs more than usual because its military consumes a lot of diesel in combat.  Even with imports, huge gas lines and empty stations are now commonplace in Russia.  Farmers sometimes cannot even get diesel to harvest their crops.