Photos appearing to show gas stations running out of diesel have spread across social media as U.S. fuel prices climb to record highs, but industry data does not currently point to any widespread shortages. One image posted on X showed a Valero station in North Texas displaying an "out of diesel" notice. Another post on X said a station in Orlando, Florida, had also run out.
The images arrive amid growing concern over the availability and cost of diesel as global supplies tighten due to the ongoing U.S.-Israel war in Iran, which has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping routes through which about a fifth of global petroleum consumption normally passes. Vessel traffic has fallen sharply owing to the fighting and attacks on regional energy infrastructure since the war was launched in late February. However, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, cautioned against interpreting individual station outages as evidence of national shortages.
"GasBuddy is not seeing any high level outages in our data, nor through our Pay with GasBuddy card," De Haan wrote on X, adding that current outages remained within normal levels. In a second post, De Haan warned of "false alarmists" spreading claims that stations were broadly running out of diesel. Individual stations can temporarily run short for a number of reasons, including unusually high local demand or delays in fuel deliveries.
GasBuddy's nationwide data indicates that, at least for now, the incidents being shared online remain isolated.
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