Prezzo del gasolio ai massimi del 2026: cosa arriva sulle vostre consegne

Diesel price at 2026 highs: what reaches your deliveries

FRIDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2026

Otto centesimi al litro fra rete ordinaria e autostrada. Ma quanto pagherete dipende dall’indice e dal ritardo scritti nel vostro contratto di trasporto.

The diesel price in Italy is at its highest this year, with Brent close to 110 dollars a barrel. For importers this is not a business-pages story: it is a cost that comes back through the side door, via the fuel clauses in transport contracts.

Diesel price: where we are

Mid-September figures show a level not seen this year.

Self-service diesel, national average: 2.266 euro per litre
Self-service diesel on the motorway network: 2.346 euro per litre
Cheapest region, Marche: 2.237 euro per litre
Most expensive province, Bolzano: 2.310 euro per litre
Brent: close to 110 dollars a barrel

Between the ordinary network and the motorway one there are eight cents a litre of difference, and between the cheapest and dearest points in Italy a little over seven.

The pump price is not the price of oil

It is worth pausing here, because the shortcut is always the same: crude goes up, diesel goes up. That is only partly true.

At least five components live inside the price you read at the pump: the cost of the raw material, the refining margin, excise duties, value added tax and distribution costs. Each moves on its own timing. A rise in crude reaches the pump with a variable delay, damped or amplified by the other items; a change in excise duties moves the price without oil having moved a dollar.

There is a geographical reason behind the internal differences too. The pump price varies from region to region because of distribution costs, network density and local competition: the tax components are the same everywhere, what changes is the rest. That is why the gap between Marche and Bolzano does not come from excise duties.

The practical consequence is that you cannot estimate the effect on your own costs by looking at the barrel. You need the price of the finished product, the one your haulier actually pays.

How it reaches your deliveries

Almost every haulage contract contains a fuel adjustment clause. It is the mechanism by which the carrier passes diesel changes on to the customer, and it works far less automatically than people assume.

Three elements decide how much and when you will pay. The first is the reference index: a weekly average, a monthly one or a ministerial survey give different results for the same increase. The second is the lag: if the clause looks at the previous month's average, September's peak turns up on an October invoice. The third is the trigger threshold: many clauses apply only above a certain percentage change, and below it the cost stays where it is.

It is worth saying precisely: these are the typical contractual mechanisms, not a forecast of how much your rates will rise. What you pay depends on your contract, not on the national average.

What to check now

The first thing is to re-read the clause. Knowing which index it uses and with what lag lets you anticipate a change by weeks, instead of discovering it on an invoice. In most contracts it is written in two lines nobody has read for years.

The second concerns routes. Eight cents a litre between the ordinary and motorway networks is nothing on a single refuelling, but across a fleet covering long runs it becomes an item. If you have recurring routes, asking the carrier how it refuels on them is a legitimate question.

The third concerns your own quotes. If you are pricing supplies with delivery included for the fourth quarter, the transport cost you are using is probably August's. Updating it before signing costs less than renegotiating it afterwards.

With La Merce, keeping an eye on the diesel price means knowing which index the fuel clause in your transport contract uses and with how many days of lag it applies, because that is where a September rise becomes an October cost.