Diesel spike from the Iran war cost US farmers $1.4 billion, and haulers are eating the same bill

The Iran war pushed diesel high enough that US farmers paid an additional $1.4 billion for fuel, according to a Democracy Now! report. Farm equipment burns the same No. 2 diesel a tanker does. Carriers and fuel haulers were buying out of that same market, so their fuel bills went up over the same stretch.

That is a large number for one buyer class, and it is worth having in front of you in your next rate conversation.

Fuel surcharges

Surcharge tables reset on a lag. Many carrier programs run off a weekly index, so a fast run-up gets absorbed by whoever is hauling this week and reimbursed later, if the customer's table keeps up. A jobber running its own fleet pays the higher price at the rack and again in the truck that delivers the load.

The practical question is whether your surcharge floor and index peg still match what you are actually paying. If a customer contract was written against a quiet diesel market, it may not respond fast enough to a war-driven move.

Watch what happens on the way back down. The same lag applies when prices fall, and a carrier can end up collecting a surcharge set off a higher week.

Hydrogen trucks

Penske Logistics and Pilot each ran a Hyundai Xcient fuel cell Class 8 tractor in the 2025 North American Council for Freight Efficiency performance run, testing how hydrogen stacks up against battery-electric on a working duty cycle, per Trucking Dive.

Pilot is a truckstop operator, so it would be on the dispensing side of any hydrogen buildout. Penske is a fleet and leasing operation, and its side of the question is cost per mile and whether the truck finishes the route.

Nothing about a NACFE run commits anybody to hydrogen. These demonstrations have been going on for years, and diesel has stayed cheaper and easier to fuel. For a c-store or truckstop operator, the detail worth noting is that the companies that would have to build the dispensing side are in the test.

What to watch

Whether diesel holds the war premium or gives it back. The $1.4 billion farm figure describes a price event that already happened. The open question is how much of that premium stays in the rack price.

Also worth tracking: whether customers with lagging surcharge tables come back to renegotiate the peg, and whether any fleet in the NACFE run publishes cost-per-mile numbers from the run.