The Refining Gap Went From $25 to $93 a Barrel

Eight months ago refiners made $25 turning a barrel of crude into diesel. Now they make about $93. Crude barely moved — the margin did, and that is your pump price.

Crude oil is not what is emptying your fuel card. Eight months ago, refiners made about $25 on every barrel they turned into diesel. Right now they are making about $93, and that gap is the part of the pump price nobody explains to you.

What the number is

The refining margin — the crack spread — is the difference between what a barrel of crude costs and what the diesel made from it sells for. It is not a tax and it is not the retailer's cut. It is what happens between the wellhead and the rack.

We calculated it straight from EIA's daily series: Gulf Coast ultra-low sulfur diesel spot price, multiplied by 42 gallons to put it in barrels, minus West Texas Intermediate at Cushing.

Ten months of that number

• January 2, 2026: $25.32 a barrel — the low of the period.
• Median across 200 trading days: $56.37.
• August 21, 2026: $102.67 — the high.
• August 25, 2026 (latest data): $93.17, with diesel at $4.216 a gallon on the Gulf Coast and WTI at $83.90.

That is roughly 3.7 times the January figure, and about 65% above the ten-month median.

Why this explains what you have been seeing

Every time crude drops and diesel does not follow, somebody tells you it is the stations. Look at the numbers again: on August 10 WTI was $83.76 and on August 25 it was $83.90 — essentially flat. In between, the spread ran from $90 to over $102 and back down to $93.

The crude price barely moved. The refining margin did all the moving. That is where the money went.

It also explains why the national retail average can fall in the same week your fill-up feels expensive. Retail follows the rack with a delay, and the rack follows this spread.

What an owner-operator can actually do with this

• Stop pricing loads off the crude headline. Crude is on the news every day and it is not what you buy. Track diesel itself.
• Watch the spread, not just the pump. When the margin is this far above its own median, the pump has room to fall even if crude does not move. That is a reason to shorten a fuel-surcharge lock, not lengthen it.
• Push the surcharge conversation with data. "Diesel is expensive" is an opinion. "The refining margin is 65% above its ten-month median" is a number a broker cannot argue with.
• Do not confuse this with a forecast. A spread this wide historically invites more refinery runs, which narrows it — but nobody knows when.

One caution about the number

Different outlets calculate the crack spread against different benchmarks — Brent instead of WTI, New York Harbor instead of the Gulf Coast — so you will see other figures for the same week. They are not contradictions; they are different rulers. The one above is Gulf Coast diesel against WTI, which is the pair that matters most for trucks running Texas and the South.

Fuel is one of the two costs you cannot negotiate away. The other one — what the truck itself burns through in wear — you can at least see coming: The Truck Savers runs a free +100 point inspection with no appointment.

Original source

U.S. Energy Information Administration — Petroleum Spot Prices (daily series)