Georgia keeps 33.3-cent gas tax, 37.3-cent diesel tax suspended through Nov. 30 as crude tops $117
Georgia governor Brian Kemp extended the state's motor fuel excise tax suspension through November 30, keeping 33.3 cents a gallon off gasoline and 37.3 cents off diesel at the rack and the pump straight through Thanksgiving travel. For anyone moving product in Georgia, that is your pricing reality for the next five weeks.
Kemp made the call with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and House Speaker Jon Burns, extending the state of emergency he first hung on "global market volatility." The politics are not subtle. Midterms are days out, gas prices are the issue voters keep naming, and Kemp gets to say he is keeping money in Georgians' pockets while the pumps stay cheaper than neighboring states.
For jobbers and haulers, the mechanics matter more than the speech. With the excise gone, your Georgia street price should run roughly a third of a dollar under what the same gallon costs across a state line still collecting its tax. Watch your cross-border volumes. Stations near the state lines could draw drivers from across the border. Anyone buying loads for a Georgia-plus-neighbor footprint needs to price each state's rack separately instead of blending.
Crude at $117
Brent spot blew past $117 a barrel over the weekend, its highest since April, on fresh fears the US could strike Iran again. Houthi forces claim hits on the Rabigh refinery and the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia, plus airports, and their spokesman is warning airlines off resuming flights. The futures market is pricing it as real supply risk.
Tanker economics are where it bites US shippers. Freight to move crude from the Gulf Coast to China hit $80 million a cargo earlier this month, about ten times the rate that held for years before the Iran fighting. At those numbers the arb to Asia is gone, which keeps more US barrels home but tells you how badly the war has snarled the shipping math.
President Trump, for his part, is talking up the US "making a fortune" off high prices. Your customers paying $4.31 national average for gasoline are unlikely to see it that way.
East Coast diesel
US East Coast stocks of diesel and heating oil fell to their lowest September-through-December level since regional records began in 1990, per Shanaka's Oil & Gas Letter reading EIA data through October 20. Thin inventory going into heating season is the thing haulers and heating-oil dealers should be watching hardest right now.
The crude structure shifted under it too. Spot Brent's premium over December futures collapsed from $33.26 to $6.43 between October 2 and 20, and three days later futures settled at their April high. Russia says three diesel tankers are headed our way, but the two that can be named carry 410,000 to 430,000 barrels combined, under three hours of US demand. That is not relief.
What to watch
Whether Kemp lets the suspension lapse December 1 or extends again once the election is past. Whether any US-Iran strike actually lands and what it does to the Strait and to Saudi export infrastructure. And East Coast distillate draws over the next few EIA weeklies, because if stocks keep falling into a cold snap, diesel and heating-oil basis could tighten fast.