Oil Fell After April. Why Did the Dominican Fuel Bill Keep Climbing?

In April 2026, Brent crude averaged US$120.4 a barrel, its highest monthly average in the World Bank series since at least January 2024. By August it had fallen to US$90.9. If you run an island that imports every litre of fuel it burns, that should be good news, and your August bill should be smaller than your April one. It was not. In August 2026 the Dominican Republic paid US$420.5 million for refined fuels, up from US$374.2 million in April and the highest monthly figure in our customs data, which starts in January 2024. Crude got cheaper by about a quarter; the fuel bill kept rising. This is the story of how that happens, and of what it costs a country that, in President Luis Abinader's own words, imports all the fuel it consumes (Acento).

The bill, month by month

Start with what "normal" looked like. Refined petroleum products, the gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel oil that sit under tariff heading HS 2710, are the single largest import line for the Dominican Republic. In 2025, Dominican customs (DGA) recorded between US$177.9 million and US$290.0 million a month of them. January and February 2026 were ordinary: US$225.1 million and US$202.1 million.

Then the war involving Iran reached the oil market. In March the bill jumped to US$341.0 million, and it never came back down: US$374.2 million in April, US$362.8 million in May, US$390.4 million in June, US$403.0 million in July, and US$420.5 million in August, against US$177.9 million in August 2025. That is a third consecutive monthly increase and 136.4% more than a year earlier.

August 2025 was a light month, so the annual comparison flatters the jump. A fairer test is the summer as a whole. From June to August 2026 the Dominican Republic spent US$1,213.9 million on refined fuels, against US$668.1 million in the same three months of 2025, an increase of 81.7%.

Fuel now dominates the headline. Total imports were US$3,000.7 million in August 2026, up 16.2% from US$2,583.1 million a year earlier. Mineral fuels as a group (HS 27) accounted for US$638.1 million of that, up 73.4% from US$368.1 million. Take fuels out and imports rose a modest 6.7%. The trade deficit widened to US$1,758.1 million from US$1,396.6 million in August 2025.

More fuel, or pricier fuel?

Every value change in trade data hides two possible stories: the country bought more, or it paid more for the same thing. Customs declarations carry a net weight, so we can separate them.

Some of it is volume. In August 2026, 390,000 tonnes of refined fuel arrived, up 60.0% from 243,700 tonnes in August 2025. Over June to August, weight rose 23.5%, to 1.14 million tonnes from 925,500 tonnes. But value rose 81.7% over the same months, more than three times as fast. Put both on one scale, with the 2025 monthly average set to 100, and the gap is plain: in August 2026 the value index stood at 174.8 and the weight index at 117.1.

Divide value by weight and you get what a tonne of imported refined fuel cost at the Dominican border. In August 2025 it was about US$730. In February 2026, before the shock, about US$714. Then it moved fast: US$902 in March, US$1,113 in April, and a peak of US$1,264 in May. Since June it has held between US$1,034 and US$1,078, the August figure. A tonne cost about 48% more than a year earlier. This is mainly a price story, with some volume on top.

The twist: crude cooled, refined fuel did not

Here is where the mystery sharpens. If the Dominican bill simply tracked crude, it should have eased after April. World Bank prices show Brent at US$71.1 in February, US$103.7 in March and US$120.4 in April, then US$107.5 in May, US$85.4 in June, US$83.4 in July and US$90.9 in August, against US$68.2 in August 2025.

From April to August, Brent fell by about a quarter. The Dominican price per tonne of refined fuel fell about 3%, from US$1,113 to US$1,078. Compare the summer with the summer before and the gap is the same: from June to August, Brent averaged about US$86.6 a barrel, up about 23% from about US$70.2 a year earlier, while the Dominican value per tonne averaged about US$1,062, up about 47% from about US$722.

The Dominican Republic does not buy crude for its cars and trucks. Crude petroleum (HS 2709) was a separate US$88.2 million in August, one or two cargoes a month for the country's refinery. What it mostly buys is finished product, and in 2026 the finished product stayed expensive after crude eased. Reuters reported in June that, as the truce took hold, "the decline in diesel prices and crack spreads has been much softer than crude oil" (Reuters, via Hydrocarbon Processing). FreightWaves put it more simply in July: "even as crude prices have fallen in recent weeks, products have not" (FreightWaves).

My read, and it is a read: the Dominican fuel bill follows the price of diesel and gasoline more than the price of a barrel of Brent, and in 2026 the margin between the two (the crack spread) widened. The customs data cannot confirm which product drove it, because the heading mixes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel oil.

Who pays, and who supplies

The cost does not stop at the port. In March, with oil far above the US$52 a barrel the 2026 budget assumed, El Día reported that the government expected to spend about RD$1.2 billion on fuel subsidies in a single week (El Día). By May, Acento reported that the 2026 energy bill was heading for about US$5.4 billion, roughly US$900 million above the government's budget (Acento). In June came a truce and a three-month freeze on local fuel prices (elDinero). The subsidies kept running: by late August the total allocated in 2026 had passed RD$27 billion (Dominican Today), and by mid-September it was above RD$32,000 million (Revista Mercado). As elCaribe put it in July, for an energy-importing economy "the transmission is direct" (elCaribe).

Where does the fuel come from, and where does it land? Of US$508.8 million in crude and refined fuel imports in August, US$412.4 million (81%) cleared at a single customs post, Haina Oriental, west of Santo Domingo. The United States supplied US$287.6 million of the refined fuel, up from US$150.9 million a year earlier, but its share fell to 68.4% from 84.8%. Two new names appeared: Latvia (US$35.1 million) and Finland (US$28.9 million), neither of which recorded refined fuel sales to the Dominican Republic in August 2025. The U.S. Virgin Islands added US$32.7 million and the Netherlands US$23.2 million.

The data shows the new Baltic and Nordic origins, not the reason for them. Revista Mercado, measuring a wider basket of hydrocarbons, found the United States supplied 88.92% of Dominican hydrocarbon import value in the second quarter of 2026 (Revista Mercado); August's refined fuel mix was more diversified than that.

Across the border: Hispaniola

While fuel arrives by sea, the Dominican Republic's trade with its only land neighbour runs the other way, and mostly by road. In August 2026 Dominican exports to Haiti were US$105.6 million, up 14.3% from US$92.4 million a year earlier and down 3.0% from July. From January to August they rose 20.9% to US$808.1 million from US$668.2 million. Every month of 2026 has been above US$89 million.

About nine of every ten dollars, US$95.8 million, crossed at three land border posts: Elías Piña (US$37.3 million), Dajabón (US$29.9 million) and Jimaní (US$28.6 million). What crosses is the trade of a country building and eating: steel reinforcing bars (US$14.0 million, from US$9.7 million in August 2025), cement (US$8.9 million, from US$4.9 million), plastic containers, hydration drinks and wheat flour. Haiti's sea route is under strain; Revista Mercado reported that insecurity makes it harder for shipping lines to call directly at Haitian ports (Revista Mercado), and the same report counted about 3,900 containers dispatched to Haiti through the Dominican Republic so far in 2026, about 50% more than a year earlier. That is transit cargo, a different flow from the Dominican exports counted here.

One part of the border trade is shrinking. Free-zone exports to Haiti fell to US$11.0 million in August from US$20.5 million a year earlier, with knitted T-shirts down to US$2.9 million from US$8.9 million. Diario Libre reported a 28.5% fall in free-zone exports to Haiti in the first half of 2026, which the minister attributed to the instability in the neighbouring country (Diario Libre).

The other direction is small. Goods shipped from Haiti to the Dominican Republic in August were worth US$1.08 million, and US$0.87 million of that was declared as Dominican in origin, free-zone goods making a round trip. Goods of Haitian origin were about US$0.08 million.

The payoff

So why did the Dominican fuel bill keep rising after oil fell? Because the Dominican Republic buys refined fuel, not crude, and refined fuel stayed expensive while crude eased; and because it bought somewhat more of it, about a quarter more by weight over the summer. The war set the new price level in March. The truce lowered crude. It did not lower the price of a tonne of diesel and gasoline landed at Haina by much. What the data cannot tell us is which fuel did the damage, or how long the subsidy can absorb it.

What to watch

• September 2026 customs data (expected mid-November 2026): Brent averaged US$116.8 in September, up from US$90.9 in August. Watch whether refined fuel spending passes US$420.5 million again.
• The price freeze: the three-month freeze on local prices announced in June has run its course; watch the weekly subsidy notices from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MICM) through October and November 2026.
• Suppliers: whether Latvia and Finland appear again as refined fuel origins in the September data, and whether the U.S. share recovers from 68.4%.
• Gold: the August Canada swing was a change of gold buyer (US$165.3 million of US$172.3 million). India, the main buyer in much of 2025, last took Dominican gold in May 2026, the month it raised its gold import duty from 6% to 15% (World Gold Council). Whether India returns in September is the test; the timing fits, but the data does not show why buyers changed.
• Haiti: exports to Haiti through Elías Piña, Dajabón and Jimaní in the last quarter of 2026, and whether free-zone sales keep falling.

Data: Dominican customs (DGA) declarations processed by CargoFax, imports at CIF and exports at FOB value in US$, August 2026, data updated 12 October 2026. Value per tonne is value divided by declared net weight. Brent: World Bank Pink Sheet, retrieved 19 October 2026. No importer or exporter names from customs records are used.

Sources

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Tier 2

• Tier 2 Acento. En 10 frases: Cómo el Gobierno dominicano ajusta combustibles y refuerza subsidios ante el shock petrolero por la guerra contra Irán. 2026-03-22 archive
• Tier 2 Hydrocarbon Processing. U.S. diesel refining economics remain firm despite Iran war truce. 2026-06-29 archive
• Tier 2 FreightWaves. As prices fall, crack spread signals a split in oil markets. 2026-07-07 archive
• Tier 2 El Día. Subsidio a combustibles esta semana se proyecta en RD$1,200 millones. 2026-03-11 archive
• Tier 2 Acento. El costo de una guerra que no es nuestra: cómo el conflicto Irán-Israel le quita US$ 900 millones al bolsillo dominicano. 2026-05-26 archive
• Tier 2 Periódico elDinero. Tregua petrolera pone a prueba la política de combustibles en RD. 2026-06-18 archive
• Tier 2 Dominican Today. Regular gasoline and diesel to cost RD$3 more this week in Dominican Republic. 2026-08-21 archive
• Tier 2 Mercado Media Network. República Dominicana mantiene sin cambios los precios de los combustibles: este es el costo del subsidio. 2026-09-11 archive
• Tier 2 Periódico elCaribe. La guerra en Medio Oriente tiene una onda expansiva sobre la economía dominicana. 2026-07-28 archive
• Tier 2 Mercado Media Network. EE. UU. abastece más del 50% del diésel de cuatro países y concentra el 89 % de la factura de hidrocarburos de RD ¿Y si Trump cambia las reglas?. 2026-10-09 archive
• Tier 2 Mercado Media Network. Efecto en la frontera: La crisis de Haití dispara el tránsito de mercancías a través de República Dominicana. 2026-09-02 archive
• Tier 2 Diario Libre. Las exportaciones dominicanas de zonas francas hacia Haití caen un 28 % en el primer semestre. 2026-07-30 archive
• Tier 2 World Gold Council. India gold market update: Import tightening. 2026-05-22 archive