The provincial average for diesel in Manitoba hit C$2.53 per litre on October 1, 2026, a 74% jump from C$1.45 before Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the start of the U.S.-Iran war, according to GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haan.

De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said the price has eased 10 cents from the prior week but remains "profoundly higher than where they were prior to this situation." He framed Canada as exposed despite domestic refining capacity. "Canada is part of the global fabric," De Haan said. "Canada is pretty much self-sufficient at refining, the problem is not what's going on with Canada's refineries."

Buyers in Europe, Turkey, China and India, also shut out of Russian product, now compete for the same barrels that supply Canadian pumps. Canadian truckers and farmers face a sustained squeeze with no clear ceiling. "This is a roller-coaster ride that we don't know what comes next," De Haan said. "An upward climb or a downward drop. It's very much a function of geopolitical tension."

What does the move mean for shippers and carriers?

The cost is being passed straight through Manitoba's for-hire trucking contracts via the fuel surcharge mechanism. Aaron Dolyniuk, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association, told CBC that surcharges now sit materially higher on every load.

"For a typical for-hire trucking company, most companies utilize something called a fuel surcharge," Dolyniuk said. "That fuel charge is passed on to whoever's purchasing the transportation services."

The surcharge flows from carrier to shipper and, eventually, to the retailer. For trucking companies, working-capital needs have grown in step with pump prices. "As we see increasing costs, the cash flow requirements, the amount of money on hand that a trucking company needs to pay its bills at the end of the day, that's going up significantly," Dolyniuk said.

The cost rolls forward from carrier to shipper on each billing cycle, with each counterparty absorbing what it cannot pass on.

How are farmers absorbing the squeeze?

Grain and hog operations take the hit differently because commodity prices are set by global markets, not local input costs. Kevin Peters, who farms hogs and grains near Steinbach, runs through roughly C$4,000 of fuel on a single busy harvest day when equipment runs "efficiently and optimally." Higher canola prices have offset part of the bill, but margins remain compressed.

Peters underscored the structural problem for primary producers. "The market sets the price for the crop and so we don't really have a way to add the fuel costs into the crop price," he said. That leaves farmers eating the differential.

"We all need fuel to operate, but it's something that's very difficult for farmers to pass along," Peters said. "Generally the increases just come out of our margins and out of our income, essentially."

Where do consumer prices go from here?

Every link in the Manitoba supply chain carries the surcharge to the next. "So at some point or another, the last mile is typically by truck," Dolyniuk said. "Household goods, consumer goods, food, produce, you name it — at some point or another, it's gonna be impacted by fuel costs."

Manitoba's pump-price ceiling now rests on three unresolved flashpoints: the trajectory of the U.S.-Iran war, the pace of Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries, and whether European and Asian buyers continue to outbid Canadian shippers for diesel cargoes out of the same North American refinery pool.