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May 9, 2026 — A global analysis of fuel costs during Middle East shipping disruptions puts the United States squarely at the top of the list, with an extra $666 per person in energy bills. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) compared fuel prices from January–February, before the Strait of Hormuz chaos, with prices from March–October and found that 169 countries absorbed $665 billion in shock costs. The U.S. share: $226 billion.
That figure is not a forecast. It is a retrospective snapshot of how heavily the world's largest economy still leans on oil for moving people, food, and freight. It also makes a broader point: the countries that burned through the most money were not necessarily the ones with the highest pump prices, but the ones with the most diesel-dependent ways of moving goods.
CREA's analysis found the U.S. paid more than twice as much as any other nation in absolute fuel shock costs. Canadians were next at roughly $597 per person, followed by Australians at $546 and New Zealanders at $484. Those four countries, the report says, share more than a mildly awkward reliance on gasoline: they all ship a lot of stuff over very long distances.
"Australia's position in the top four alongside Canada, the U.S. and New Zealand makes sense, considering Australia has the highest per capita diesel usage rates in the world, driven by high use in mining and farming," University of Sydney senior economist Luke Hartigan said.
"That's why similar patterns appear in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand, all of which have large agricultural sectors, and Canada also has a significant mining industry."
Geography matters more than most people realize. Hartigan pointed out that moving produce from Queensland to Sydney, or freight from the Northern Territory to major cities, covers distances comparable to crossing Europe. U.S. drivers face the same reality: fresh goods, fuel, and building materials often travel thousands of miles from farm or factory to store.
Gasoline gets the headlines because consumers feel it every time they fill up. But the CREA numbers, and the expert reactions around them, make clear that diesel is the bigger structural problem.
Australia imports more than 90% of its refined and crude oil, making it extremely sensitive to supply shocks. But Australia has also gone against the global trend by using more diesel, not less. Amandine Denis-Ryan, CEO of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), called the trend "really at odds" with the rest of the world.
"Between 2000 and recent years, Australia increased its diesel intensity by 33%, while the world decreased it by 30%, and countries like the U.S. and Japan reduced it by 50%," she told SBS News.
Australia is now the world's largest importer of diesel, representing roughly 10% of global seaborne diesel trade. It is also the third-largest importer of petrol and jet fuel. When set against Australia's share of global GDP and population, Denis-Ryan said, "these numbers are enormous."
Several forces drove that diesel habit: a shift away from rail freight toward road freight, a move from underground coal mines that run on electricity to open-cut mines that run on diesel, and the slow depletion of easy-to-reach mineral deposits.
"As we exhaust our best and most easily accessible mineral resources, we need more diesel for each tonne of coal produced and each tonne of ore produced," Denis-Ryan said.
She also noted that Australia's vehicle fleet is old and inefficient. The same critique applies to large parts of the U.S. trucking fleet, where long-haul diesel rigs have few affordable low-carbon alternatives on the market today.
The fuel shock did not stop at the gas station. In Australia, IEEFA research found that oil price spikes were a key contributor to every one of the country's six inflation flare-ups since 2000. High diesel costs raise the price of moving nearly everything, which then works its way into groceries, construction, and retail goods.
Matt Grudnoff, senior economist at the left-leaning Australia Institute, said the public debate tends to focus on household fuel costs because that is the most direct, visible pain point.
"But the data shows that a large share of the economic impact happens behind the scenes through freight and transport," Grudnoff said.
"Higher fuel prices increase the cost of moving goods around the country, which then contributes to inflation across the economy."
The U.S. spent much of the same period wrestling with inflation. The CREA data offers a useful reminder that when fuel prices jump, the inflation effects are not limited to the transportation sector. They ripple through food prices, industrial inputs, and consumer goods.
A striking contrast from the same report: while U.S. gasoline and diesel drivers faced hundreds of dollars in extra costs, U.S. electric vehicle drivers saw just a $17 increase in charging costs after March. That gap points to one of the quickest ways to cushion households from the next oil shock.
There has already been an "enormous" pickup in EV uptake in Australia, according to Luke Hartigan, with electric vehicle loans doubling as drivers tried to dodge soaring petrol and diesel prices. The U.S. market has also seen steady EV growth, but freight and agriculture remain extremely hard to electrify with current technology and infrastructure.
Grudnoff argued that governments can reduce or offset the upfront cost of EVs, which would help households. But he warned that the real focus should be on industry.
"The public conversation tends to focus on household fuel costs because that's where people notice the impact most directly when they fill up their cars," Grudnoff said.
"But the data shows that a large share of the economic impact happens behind the scenes through freight and transport."
A separate Climate Council report found that Australia paid more than twice as much as any other nation in additional diesel import costs during the same crisis, with the toll reaching $9 billion over six months. The report also credited electric and hybrid cars with cutting $1.7 billion in costs and saving the equivalent of 17.4 million liters of petrol and diesel per week.
Denis-Ryan said she hoped the crisis would be a "wake-up call" — not just for Australia, but for any country that treats oil dependence as an unavoidable fact of life.
"Particularly in terms of accelerating transport electrification, but also in looking at how we can slow the growth of oil use, and diesel use in particular, throughout Australia," she said.
For the U.S., the lesson is similar: the largest fuel-shock bill on the planet came from a system that moves nearly everything with diesel. Until that system changes, the next Middle East disruption will likely produce another painful, inflationary bill.
