A litre of diesel has gone from $1.52 in January to $2.61 now. Canada's unique position — a major oil exporter with no strategic reserve of its own — means the G7 release may help less here than elsewhere.

Despite the G7's coordinated release of 100 million barrels of oil and diesel announced last week, fuel prices in Canada are still climbing — a reminder that a strategic reserve release takes time to reach pumps and refineries, and that Canada's own position in the global diesel market is unusual among G7 members.

The scale of the increase

Natural Resources Canada data shows the average price for a litre of diesel has climbed from $1.52 in January to $2.61 now — a jump of more than 70% over roughly nine months, driven primarily by the ongoing Middle East conflict's disruption to global refining and shipping capacity. That increase has landed directly on the operating costs of exactly the fuel-exposed businesses this site has covered throughout the year, from Transat's record jet fuel bill to small businesses citing fuel as a persistent top-three cost concern in CFIB's monthly surveys.

Why Canada's situation is genuinely different

Canada is the only G7 country without a strategic oil reserve of its own, despite being a major oil-producing nation and a net exporter of crude. That's a structural quirk worth understanding: Canada exports more diesel than it produces domestically, but Eastern Canada specifically relies on diesel imports from the U.S. and other sources, creating a regional vulnerability even though the country as a whole is a net energy exporter. A spokesperson for federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson's office said Canada's contribution to the G7 effort will come through coordinating oil refinery maintenance schedules to avoid too many refineries going offline simultaneously — a more limited form of participation than releasing reserves, since Canada doesn't have reserves of its own to release.

The same spokesperson noted Canada's diesel refineries are already operating near full capacity, meaning there's limited near-term ability to simply produce more domestically to offset the price pressure — the primary lever available is the broader global supply increase from the G7's coordinated release working its way through international markets over the coming weeks.

The silver lining, and its limits

Canada has seen real price increases but hasn't experienced an outright diesel shortage, unlike some scenarios feared earlier in the year — a distinction that matters for business planning, since a price spike is a cost problem while a shortage is an operational one. The G7 release is explicitly designed to ease the price pressure over a four-month window, with a front-loaded diesel release in the first 20 days meant to show results relatively quickly. Whether Canadian pump and wholesale diesel prices actually track that timeline, given the country's reliance on the broader global release rather than its own reserves, is the real test of how much near-term relief businesses here should actually expect.