Moscow has yet to accept Trump’s energy ceasefire: where would it affect diesel prices if it holds?

Executive summary

On Sunday morning, 11 October, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine was effective “immediately” and that “both sides have agreed”. But what the two sides actually signed falls short of that. A White House official told Axios that the announcement referred to a “potential deal” under which each side would stop striking the other’s oil refineries, and that a halt to strikes on power plants and grids “may come later”. On Moscow, he said: “The Russians are thinking about it, and we will know soon whether they are ready.” Kyiv agreed conditionally: President Zelensky said the announcement “was news” to him, and that Ukraine supported the ceasefire provided Russia did too. The Kremlin had not commented by Sunday evening, and hours after the post, a power plant in Kharkiv came under bombardment.

This is therefore an announcement of a proposal Russia has yet to accept, rather than an agreement in force. It is the third such attempt. The first, in March 2025, was announced by the Kremlin itself for 30 days and ended on 18 April 2025 amid mutual accusations of violations. The second, on 14 September 2026, was announced by Trump and denied by Kyiv the same day; the following night, Ukraine struck Russia’s Syzran refinery. Two days after that announcement, the New York diesel refining margin (Refining Margin / Crack Spread), the difference between the price of a barrel of diesel and a barrel of crude, posted its highest close since 2006: 114.52 dollars per barrel.

The market is watching this ceasefire specifically because the strikes’ price impact appears in diesel rather than gasoline. The diesel premium over gasoline (Diesel–Gasoline Spread), the difference between the prices of a barrel of diesel and a barrel of gasoline, rose from an average of 15.81 dollars per barrel in June to 62.36 dollars in September, during the same months that Russian refinery runs, the volumes of crude actually entering refining units, fell to their lowest level in more than two decades. This premium could fall if the ceasefire holds. But nothing in recent days yet confirms that it will hold. Even if it does, repairing a damaged refinery takes weeks, and Russia’s diesel export ban remains in place until 31 October.