U.S. refineries typically start doing fall maintenance in September. But this year is a little different.

American refineries are running at 97% capacity. Conflict in other parts of the world has taken out other refineries, squeezing global refined products markets and pushing up prices. Now, upcoming run-of-the-mill maintenance adds even more pressure on markets.

U.S. refiners don’t want shut down parts of their refineries: they’re raking in high margins right now from every barrel they make.

“You’re going to do everything you can to keep that refinery running,” said Tom Seng, a professor of energy finance at Texas Christian University. “We’re not talking band-aids. You’re going to do the required maintenance at a minimum.”

Across the U.S., companies have been running their refineries to make as much gasoline, diesel and jet fuel as possible. Seng said that at some point, their equipment will need some work.

“You can’t be running 97% continually for months and not have something break,” he said.

These maintenance shutdowns for refineries are called turnarounds. Any time that U.S. refiners take to go offline this fall for turnarounds will lower what they can produce. Tom Kloza, chief energy advisor for Gulf Oil, said that’s happening as harvest season approaches for farmers.

“[Harvest season] sees a boost in diesel use, and then there’s the heating season,” Kloza said. “And God only knows, we hope we don’t have a cold winter in the U.S. Northeast or in Europe this year, because we don’t have the hydrocarbons to have the wherewithal to pay for it.”

Joe DeLaura, senior energy strategist with Rabobank, is also concerned about where that leaves the market for diesel this fall.

“I just have nothing positive to say, except diesel prices are going to go up, and diesel inventories are likely to continue dropping, and this is a global problem,” DeLaura said.

He said demand for diesel is less elastic than demand for gasoline — you can’t just stop using it.

“If you stop using it, it means you’re not doing the thing, right?” he said. “It means you’re not literally harvesting crops, right? Or you’re not shipping things. So, companies will usually tend to just continue to use it, and they’ll just pay up for it and try to pass the cost along to the consumer.”

DeLaura said that as diesel prices climb even higher, inflationary hits will follow about two months after.

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