Your fuel surcharge lives on one Monday number. This week it snapped back 22 cents.

Every Monday the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes its weekly on-highway diesel price — the survey average (all taxes included) that most fuel-surcharge schedules are written against. It's so much the reference that EIA's own FAQ answers "How do I calculate diesel fuel surcharges?" by pointing at this table.

Here is what that table has done, verbatim, over the last five sheets: $5.210 on June 8 → $5.059 → $4.832 → $4.668 → $4.578 on July 6 — four straight down-weeks, 63 cents off the national average. Then Monday's sheet: $4.796. Up 21.8 cents in a single week.

EIA weekly U.S. on-highway diesel, dollars per gallon: the June 8 sheet, the July 6 bottom, and Monday's snap-back. A 63-cent slide over four weeks, 22 cents of it recovered in one.

And the national number hides the real story: the same Monday, the Gulf Coast jumped 32 cents while New England fell 3.

If your surcharge schedule resets off the Monday number — most do — those four down-weeks walked your surcharge line down step by step, and the snap-back doesn't reach your settlement until the schedule reads the new sheet. In EIA's own price history, a one-week national jump this size has happened only five times in the last three years — four of them this spring. This is a whipsaw market, and the whipsaw runs through your settlement math with a one-week lag.

Honest caveats: the EIA average includes all taxes and lags the pump by design — your card price moves daily while the survey moves Mondays; and surcharge schedules differ (some read DOE/EIA weekly, some monthly averages). Nothing here is a rate recommendation — it's the reference number and what it did.

Sources (primary, verified today): U.S. EIA, Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update — weekly on-highway diesel prices, July 13, 2026 table (all regional figures and week-over-week changes quoted directly) · EIA weekly retail price history workbook (psw18vwall.xls) — the June 8–July 13 trajectory and the five-jumps-in-three-years count computed from EIA's own history file, retrieved this morning.

Every fuel surcharge in trucking lives on one Monday number: the EIA weekly on-highway diesel average. This week it snapped back 22 cents.

The trajectory, verbatim from EIA's own table: $5.21 on June 8. Four straight down-weeks to $4.58 on July 6 — 63 cents off the national average. Then Monday's sheet: $4.80, up 21.8 cents in a single week. In EIA's price history, a national jump that size has happened five times in the last three years.

And the national number hides the real story. The same Monday: Gulf Coast +32 cents to $4.55. New England DOWN 3 cents to $5.19. California at $6.13 — a $1.58 spread between regions on the same sheet.

What I'd do with it this week:
— Pull your rate cons and check which Monday your surcharge schedule reads. In a 22-cent week, dispatch date vs. delivery date is real money.
— If a broker's surcharge table didn't move with Monday's sheet, cite the number. It's public and neutral.
— Diesel is $1.04/gal above last July. Every 1,000 gallons costs about $1,038 more than a year ago — dedicated freight priced last summer without a surcharge clause is underwater by exactly that math.

Source: EIA Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update, July 13, 2026 weekly table, and EIA's own price-history workbook. Read the sheet your settlement reads.

FIRST SOURCE · one verified original-source finding, composed for one reader · this edition: independent trucking owner-operators