What EIA's $6.352 diesel average does to a per-mile fuel surcharge

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) put the U.S. average on-highway diesel price at $6.352 a gallon for the week of Oct. 26, up 7.6 cents from the prior week and $2.634 above the same week a year ago. The next weekly reading comes Tuesday, Nov. 3. For anyone who pays or bills a fuel surcharge, that one number sets the check, so it helps to know how the math runs.

How the weekly price becomes a per-mile charge

Most truckload surcharge schedules work the same way. The contract names a base, or peg, price. Every dollar of diesel above the peg is divided by an assumed fuel economy, often 6 miles per gallon, to get cents per mile. The schedule then reads the latest EIA weekly price and applies it to the next billing week. Peg, mpg and lag vary by contract, so check your own paperwork.

Here is a worked example using a hypothetical contract with a $4.00 peg and 6 mpg. At EIA's $6.352, the surcharge is $2.352 divided by 6, or 39.2 cents a mile. Last week's 7.6-cent jump adds about 1.3 cents a mile under that schedule. The three weeks of gains in EIA's table ($6.179 on Oct. 12, $6.276 on Oct. 19, $6.352 on Oct. 26) add up to 17.3 cents a gallon, or roughly 2.9 cents a mile.

The year-over-year gap is larger. A $2.634 rise in the pump price works out to 43.9 cents a mile at 6 mpg. On a 500-mile load, that is about $220 more in surcharge than the same fuel schedule would have paid a year earlier.

What it means for carriers

Know your lag. EIA collects prices on Monday, publishing them Tuesday from a sample of 590 truck stops and service stations, and many contracts apply that price to loads picked up later in the week or the next one. When prices climb, a longer lag means you pay more at the pump than you recover. Compare your own cost per mile with the surcharge line, and check whether the mpg in your contract is close to what your trucks achieve.

What shippers and brokers should watch

Surcharges are moving separately from linehaul, so keep them split on invoices and in quotes. EIA's October Short-Term Energy Outlook, released Oct. 6, said retail diesel averaged $6.29 in September and forecast prices to stay above $6 in October, then ease gradually and remain above $4 a gallon through 2027. EIA's next outlook is due Nov. 10. A drop in the pump price flows back to shippers through the same formula, so a good schedule works in both directions.

Current diesel prices are on PDI's diesel prices page.