Who Is Raising the Price of Gasoline: the Strait or the Strikes?
Since the last pre-war week, regular gasoline has added 142 cents a gallon and diesel 239. Crude explains 77 cents of each; the refining margin explains more than the rest, with gasoline retailers absorbing part of it. So the live variable is refineries, as the White House says, but not mainly Russia's. On every published measure of supply lost, Russia's outages are a quarter to a third of the world's distillate shortfall and the Gulf is the rest. September's rise in the diesel margin follows the Russian calendar on the US crude benchmark and disappears on Brent. Gasoline's margin tracks the Gulf's products and US maintenance; Russia's part of it cannot be sized.
On Monday 5 October the President wrote that what is driving up gasoline "is no longer the Strait of Hormuz, because Record Numbers of Barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis, but the word, 'Refineries,' where Russia's are being blown up by Ukraine, and where ours are being closed up, in Blue States, like California". A week earlier he said he had asked Ukraine's president to ease off those refineries. That same Monday the Energy Information Administration's survey put regular gasoline at $4.354 and diesel at $6.199, both down for a second week from a diesel record of $6.529 set on 21 September. The claim can be tested with one price and two supply calendars. A companion note found last week that Gulf crude exports are back at pre-war; this one starts from the products that are not, and asks who owns the margin between the barrel and the pump.
What this note answers
- How much of the pump is crude? Weekly retail gasoline and diesel since the war began, split into crude, crack, taxes and distribution, in cents a gallon.
- Which parent does each margin follow? The gasoline and diesel cracks dated against Russian refinery halts and the Gulf's product exports, on both crude benchmarks.
- What does the split bracket? Russia's share of the diesel margin on five published measures, what would make each end right, and what the closed US refineries are worth.
- What would change the view? The CPI energy line on 14 October, the IEA's October report, the crack under a truce, Russian runs.
Terms used throughout, defined once. Crack: the refining margin, the spot price of a product times 42 gallons minus the price of a barrel of crude, in dollars a barrel; 42 cents a barrel is one cent a gallon. WTI: West Texas Intermediate, the US crude benchmark; the EIA's refiner acquisition cost for September ($98.81) sat $1.50 above WTI and $15 below Dated Brent, so WTI is the crude in every split here; Brent is shown wherever it changes the reading. ULSD: ultra-low-sulphur diesel, the on-road grade; the Gulf Coast spot is the US wholesale reference. STEO and OMR: the EIA's monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook and the International Energy Agency's monthly Oil Market Report. The survey: the EIA's Monday retail price survey.
The case that the strikes are raising the price
The strongest case for the claim this note scores, in the terms its proponents would use.
- The dates are Russian. The diesel crack over WTI stood at $101 on 31 August and $107 on 1 September as Kirishi stopped, and reached $115 in the sessions after Reuters counted three of Russia's six largest diesel refineries down and Syzran paused; it held through the Moscow fire and Perm. No Gulf reading worsened in September. The September move has one calendar.
- Marginal barrels set prices, cumulative barrels do not. Russia's diesel was the swing cargo of the Atlantic basin, and swing supply lost moves the price more than the same volume lost elsewhere. GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan put 60–65% of the recent diesel spike on Russia.
- The strait's bite is shrinking and Russia's is growing. Gulf crude is at pre-war and the late-September product readings sit above the IEA's August figure; Russia's runs were at a 24-year low in July and lost five more plants in September. Forward, the Gulf heals and Russia does not.
- The bans and the imports. Russia stopped exporting diesel by decree on top of what it lost by fire, and in August imported 172,000 tonnes of products, three times its 2025 total: an exporter turned importer takes from the pool twice.
Of these, this note tests (1) in §2, where it concedes the move on the US crude basis and shows it absent on Brent; (2) only in part, since §3 brackets volumes and cannot weight a Russian barrel above a Gulf one, and reads De Haan's number as a statement about September, not the level; and (3) in §3 and §5, where it is the Gulf-side tripwire. It cannot test (4), the price effect of Russia's new imports, inside a frame built on export counts.
The gallon, split
The method. Crude is the WTI spot averaged over the Monday-to-Friday week before the survey, divided by 42. The crack is the Gulf Coast spot product, conventional regular gasoline or ULSD, averaged over the same week, minus that crude. Taxes are the federal excise plus the EIA's average of state taxes as of 1 January: 51.67 cents on gasoline, 59.90 on diesel. Distribution and retail is what is left. The 5 October survey's wholesale week has two of five days at the pull; it is re-run when EIA posts.
What it shows. On 5 October a gallon of regular was $4.354 = 232.8 crude + 134.8 crack + 51.7 tax + 16.2 distribution; on 23 February, the last pre-war survey, it was $2.937 = 155.5 + 21.2 + 51.7 + 65.3. Diesel went from $3.809 = 155.5 + 83.1 + 59.9 + 82.4 to $6.199 = 232.8 + 249.9 + 59.9 + 77.3. Crude rose 77 cents for both fuels; the gasoline crack rose 114 cents, the diesel crack 167. Gasoline's distribution-and-retail cut fell from 65 cents to 16 and touched zero on 31 August and 28 September; diesel's held, so diesel buyers paid the whole crack.
Exhibit 1 — The gallon, week by week
How to read it. Two panels, gasoline left and diesel right, each a stack of columns in cents a gallon. Each column is one EIA Monday survey: the last pre-war survey (23 February) and every week from 24 August to 5 October. From the bottom: crude (WTI, the prior Monday-to-Friday average, divided by 42), the refining crack (Gulf Coast spot product minus that crude), taxes, and the distribution-and-retail residual; the column's top is the survey price, printed above it. Compare the gold crack band across weeks against the crude band beneath it; the one thing it shows is that the crack, not crude, is the band that grew. The 5 October column uses two of five wholesale days.
The last five weeks. From 31 August to 5 October gasoline rose 28 cents and diesel 60: crude added 31 cents to each, the gasoline crack gave back 20 and the diesel crack added 24. On Brent the level reads the same for diesel, the crack the larger band, though gasoline's crack band is smaller than its crude band on that basis. September does not read the same: Dated Brent carried a physical premium through the month, $17.24 above WTI on average against $6.51 before the war, and on Brent the diesel crack fell. §2 shows both.
Which parent each margin follows
The Russian calendar. Kirishi, the second-largest refinery, stopped processing on 2 September. Saratov, shut for several weeks and about to restart, was hit on Friday 11 September and stayed down. On 15 September Reuters counted three of the six largest diesel refineries, which make half of Russia's diesel, halted or cut: Kirishi shut, NORSI and Volgograd at about a quarter; Syzran paused the same day. Moscow's refinery, about 230,000 barrels a day, halted after both distillation units caught fire on the 20th; Perm halted on the 25th. On 30 September the producers' diesel export ban was extended to 31 October; the general gasoline and diesel ban runs to 31 January 2027. On 2 October Deputy Prime Minister Novak said the domestic diesel market was balanced and exports could partly reopen if output exceeded demand. Ukraine's claim of over 51% of Russian refining capacity disabled is a claim; the measured record is Bloomberg's July runs of 3.6 million barrels a day, the lowest since 2002, and Kpler's mid-July estimate of 1.5–2.0 million barrels a day offline.
The Gulf's products. The IEA's September report, covering August: Gulf refined-product and LPG exports 3.7 million barrels a day below February, nearly 60%; Gulf diesel net exports 390,000 barrels a day, just over a quarter of pre-war; Gulf and Russian diesel net exports together 1.6 million barrels a day below February. The late-September readings sit on other bases: Kpler had refined products through Hormuz at 677,000 barrels a day against 3.6 million before the war; analysts cited by Yahoo Finance put the region's product exports at about 3 million barrels a day, 58% of pre-war; Goldman put them at about half the 2025 average. No single series runs through September, but none of these shows the Gulf's products worsening while Russia's refineries went down.
Exhibit 2 — Three cracks against two calendars, on two crudes
How to read it. Four daily lines on one axis, dollars a barrel, 5 January to 29 September (the last EIA print): the Gulf Coast ULSD crack over WTI (solid black), the same ULSD crack over Brent (dashed black), the Gulf Coast jet crack over WTI (grey) and the Gulf Coast gasoline crack over WTI (gold), each the spot product times 42 minus the crude spot. The dotted hairline is the war's start. Short ticks along the top mark Russian refinery halts (Kirishi 2 Sep, Saratov 11 Sep, Syzran 15 Sep, Moscow 20 Sep, Perm 25 Sep); the two labelled ticks below mark the IEA's August products reading (11 Sep) and Kpler's late-September products count (30 Sep). Compare the solid black line's September slope against the dashed one's, then the gold line's last four sessions against the black's; the one thing it shows is that diesel's September rise is there over WTI and not over Brent, and that gasoline's rose and fell back.
Diesel, on two crudes. Over WTI the crack went from $101.47 on 31 August to $107.35 on 1 September, stepped to $111.63 and $114.49 on 15–16 September after the three-of-six count and Syzran's pause, and ran between $102 and $116 through the Moscow fire and Perm. On weekly means it read 102.5, 105.9, 111.8, 111.0 and 105.0 from the week of 31 August to the week of 28 September (the last week has two prints): a rise of $9.29 to mid-September, on the Russian dates. Over Brent the same weeks read 95.9, 91.4, 91.2, 87.5 and 85.8: a fall of $4.70 to the same week. The product itself rose $16 a barrel from 31 August to 29 September and WTI $9; Brent, which has no 31 August print, rose $24 from 28 August. So September's move is a Russian margin story on the US benchmark and a Dated Brent story on the world one; the house cannot separate the two with the series it has, and concedes the steelman's first claim on the US basis and not on Brent.
Gasoline. The gasoline crack over WTI ran $46–55 through the first half of September, rose with diesel's to $59–69 between 16 and 22 September, spiked to $79.91 on the 23rd, and fell to $56.34 by the 29th while the Russian halts continued; the product itself was $4.66 a barrel cheaper on 29 September than on 28 August. The US series explains the shape: refinery utilization was 98.0% on 28 August, the highest for the time of year since 2018, and 92.5% on 25 September as units came down for autumn maintenance. Gasoline's premium over its pre-war crack is $34 a barrel against diesel's $78. Russia's gasoline export ban was renewed from 1 August, and in August Russia imported gasoline. Gasoline's margin is the products channel through Hormuz and the US maintenance season, not Russia.
The turn of 28 September. Diesel fell 14.7 cents in that survey, the first decline in a month. Crude took about 20 cents off (24 on EIA's prints; 19 if the 25 September WTI print, which sits $11 and $14 below its neighbouring days, is left out), as WTI's weekly mean fell from $103.5 to $93.6; the crack took 2 to 5 cents off. On Brent the same week's crude fall was 17 cents and the crack's 9, so the turn reads as a crude move on either benchmark, with the crack carrying more of it on Brent. The refinery request was reported on 27–28 September, after the week that set those prices had closed.
The G7 week. The G7's 100 million barrels, announced on 2 October with "a frontloaded substantial diesel release within the first 20 days", took the ULSD future down 3% to $4.50 on the day; the 5 October survey, diesel −18.3 cents, reflects that week. The US reserve releases are crude; the diesel in the G7 release comes from members and partners holding product stocks.
The split, as a bracket
Why a bracket. Attributing one world price between two simultaneous supply losses depends on which loss is measured, over what window, and whether a barrel of Russian diesel lost moves the price as much as a barrel of Gulf diesel lost. The house publishes the range across every published measure and says what each end assumes; it does not publish a single number.
| Measure | Russia | Gulf | Russia share |
|---|---|---|---|
| IEA diesel/gasoil net exports, Aug vs Feb (mb/d; Gulf derived from "just over a quarter of pre-war", Russia as the remainder of 1.6) | 0.5 | 1.1 | 31% |
| KSE Institute, cumulative exports lost Mar–Aug (million barrels; "around 2.2 times larger") | 68 | 152 | 31% |
| Kpler Russian product exports, Jul y/y, vs IEA Gulf products and LPG vs Feb (mb/d) | 1.1 | 3.7 | 23% |
| Kpler Russian middle-distillate production, Mar–Jul, vs IEA Gulf diesel (mb/d) | 0.35 | 1.1 | 24% |
| Reuters Russian diesel exports, June vs a year earlier, vs IEA Gulf diesel (mb/d) | 0.37 | 1.1 | 25% |
Exhibit 3 — Where the diesel margin comes from
How to read it. One horizontal bar, 185 cents long: the Gulf Coast diesel crack over WTI on 29 September ($108.21 a barrel) minus its pre-war mean ($30.49), in cents a gallon. The solid gold segment at the left is the low end of Russia's share, the pale gold segment the width of the bracket, and the black segment the Gulf's; the dotted lines mark the bracket's ends, 42 and 58 cents, with the five measures plotted above the bar where each falls. Below the bar, two reference bars to the same scale: September's 22-cent rise in the diesel crack over WTI on weekly means, and the 24-cent crude fall of the week of 21–25 September. Compare lengths only; the one thing it shows is that on every measure the Gulf segment is at least twice Russia's, and that September's rise is about half of Russia's whole share.
In cents. The diesel crack on 29 September was $77.72 a barrel above its pre-war mean, 185 cents a gallon: Russia 42–58 cents, the Gulf 127–143. Those cents assume a barrel lost from either source moves the crack equally; if Russia's swing cargo moves it more, as the marginal-barrel case holds, Russia's share sits above every row here. September's rise on weekly means, 22 cents, is about half of Russia's whole share. The two diesel-only, same-basis measures (IEA and KSE) agree at 31%.
What would make each end right. The 23% end holds if most of what Russia stopped making is diesel Russia was burning itself, so that the seaborne loss, not the production loss, is the world's loss; the Atlantic Council's Alan Riley makes that argument, and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air's estimate that Russia's whole product-export decline equals about 4% of world seaborne diesel and gasoil trade supports it. The 31% end holds if Russia's lost gasoil and jet substitute for diesel at the margin and the Gulf's late-September readings hold. The published views outside the bracket are of different kinds: De Haan's 60–65% describes the September spike and fits §2's US-basis reading; Riley's "almost all" describes the level and sits at the Gulf end.
Gasoline gets no bracket. Russia's gasoline exports are banned and it is now a gasoline importer. The only Russian channel into US gasoline is indirect, a refining system that cannot run buying gasoline abroad, and the house cannot size it from export counts.
The claim, scored
The post makes four claims. Three are answered by the figures above: the barrels are back but still cost 77 cents more than before the war; the strait's products remain two-thirds to three-quarters of the diesel shortfall and, with US maintenance, are the note's reading of gasoline's margin, where no Russian share can be sized; and refineries are the right variable, with Russia's a quarter to a third of the diesel part. The fourth, closed American refineries, needs its own test.
"Closed up, in Blue States." The EIA's own count names three closures since the start of 2025: LyondellBasell's Houston plant in March 2025 (263,776 barrels a day, Texas), Phillips 66's Los Angeles plant in October 2025 (138,700, California) and Valero's Benicia plant by March 2026 (145,000, California): 547,000 barrels a day, 3.0% of the capacity in place in January 2025, of which 1.5 points are California's and 1.4 Texas's. US operable capacity fell from 18.42 million barrels a day in January 2025 to 18.16 in January 2026 and about 18.0 since the spring, the closures partly offset by small gains elsewhere. They are a level, not a September event: Houston and Los Angeles closed before the war and sit inside every premium-over-pre-war figure here; Benicia, 0.8% of capacity, closed by March and is the only closure the premium could carry. Where they show is the West Coast, whose refineries ran at 94% in September against 83% before the war. Yet on September means the Los Angeles gasoline crack rose by the same amount as the Gulf Coast's (the difference is $0.73 a barrel); the $18-a-barrel gap in the two premiums on 29 September opened in the month's last three sessions, and weighted by the West Coast's 12% of US refinery inputs it is worth about 5 cents of the national 142. Real as a structural fact, small as a September one. The closures split almost evenly between California and Texas; why each plant closed is a policy question outside a price decomposition.
The request. The President's account of asking Ukraine's president to ease off the refineries, and of the reply, was given to Fox News and reported on 27–28 September; the sentence is carried in three wordings by three outlets and is paraphrased here. Ukraine's president had said on 22 September, after the meeting, that there had been no discussion of Kyiv unilaterally ending the attacks and that Ukraine was ready for an energy ceasefire if Russia stopped striking Ukrainian energy. The campaign continued through the request and the crack did not fall on it. The EIA's October outlook, on its own path, has wholesale diesel over refiner cost (the house's difference of two STEO series) narrowing from 261 cents in September to 159 in December, with retail diesel at $6.27 for October and $5.79 for November and regular gasoline at $4.40 and $4.20.
Determination — the 5 October statement, clause by clause
| "Record Numbers of Barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis" | Right that the barrels are back | Gulf crude exports at pre-war (Kpler 18.3 million barrels a day); no source counts a record. Incomplete on price: crude still adds 77 cents a gallon over the pre-war survey, WTI $96 against $62. |
| "no longer the Strait of Hormuz" | Wrong on the level | The Gulf's missing products are 69–77% of the distillate shortfall on every measure, 127–143 of diesel's 185-cent crack premium; gasoline's own margin, 114 of its 142 cents, is the Hormuz products channel plus US maintenance and carries no Russian share the note can size. The exception is September's diesel increment, which moved on the Russian calendar over WTI and not over Brent. |
| "'Refineries,' where Russia's are being blown up by Ukraine" | Right variable, part of the address | Refining margin is 167 of diesel's 239 cents and 114 of gasoline's 142. Russia's outages are 23–31% of the distillate loss, 42–58 cents; September's rise on the Russian calendar holds over WTI and not over Brent. |
| "ours are being closed up, in Blue States, like California" | Half right on where, small on price | 547,000 barrels a day closed since January 2025: California 1.5 points of capacity, Texas 1.4. Two closures predate the war; the West Coast gap is worth about 5 cents of the national 142. |
On the evidence, the statement names the right variable and mostly the wrong address. The refining margin is raising the pump; the Gulf's missing products are raising the margin; Russia's refineries are 23–31% of diesel's crack premium over pre-war and an unsized part of gasoline's; the closed American plants are a few cents of the rise since pre-war. On the volume bracket a reciprocal energy truce would be worth about Russia's 42–58 cents of diesel's crack premium, more if a Russian barrel moves the price more than a Gulf one, and §5 names the crack level under a truce that would say so.
What would change the view
What would change our view. The house would revise toward "the strikes" on either of two observables. First, the IEA's October report (14 October) putting Gulf refined-product and LPG exports above 65% of February while the Gulf Coast ULSD crack over WTI is still above $100 a barrel: a crack that high with the Gulf two-thirds back cannot be the Gulf's, and the Russia end of the bracket would move above 31%. Second, an announced reciprocal energy truce followed within three weeks by the diesel crack below $80 with WTI within $5 of its level at the announcement: the increment and the level would then both be Russia's. Symmetrically, it would revise toward "the strait" if Reuters' or Bloomberg's monthly count has Russian runs back above 4.5 million barrels a day for a month and the crack does not fall below $90: the Gulf would then be the binding leg on its own.
Tripwires we will track. The September CPI on Wednesday 14 October at 08:30 ET: September's four surveys averaged 7.31% above August's, the BLS gasoline index has tracked the survey mean within 0.8 points for three months, and at gasoline's effective weight of about 3.9% (the December weight of 2.895%, scaled by the index's rise since) the energy line carries about 0.28 points of headline before seasonal adjustment; below +5% or above +9% on the index, the hand-off to the CPI note is wrong (silence: a print inside that range confirms the pass-through). The IEA's October report the same morning: Gulf products above 65% of February (silence: below 50% through December, the Gulf end stands). The ULSD crack under a truce, as above (silence: no truce by 31 December, the test never runs). Russian runs above 4.5 million barrels a day (silence: under 4.0 through December, Russia's leg is intact). Also dated: the G7's 20-day report, about 22 October, and the producers' diesel export ban, which expires on 31 October.
What the note cannot settle. Whether a barrel of Russian diesel lost moves the price more than a barrel of Gulf diesel lost; the bracket measures volumes and cannot answer it. Whether September's margin move belongs to Russia or to the Dated Brent premium; the two benchmarks disagree. The price effect of Russia's new product imports. And how much of gasoline's late-September fall was maintenance rather than the strait's products returning.
Sources and Method
Prices. EIA weekly retail prices, US regular all formulations (GASREGW) and on-highway diesel (GASDESW), Monday surveys through 5 October 2026, pulled from FRED and cross-checked against EIA's own series. EIA daily spot prices through 29 September 2026, from EIA's history workbooks: WTI Cushing (RWTC), Europe Brent (RBRTE), Gulf Coast conventional regular gasoline (EER_EPMRU_PF4_RGC_DPG), Gulf Coast ULSD (EER_EPD2DXL0_PF4_RGC_DPG), Gulf Coast kerosene-type jet (EER_EPJK_PF4_RGC_DPG), New York Harbor ULSD and conventional gasoline, Los Angeles RBOB. The 25 September WTI print ($85.23) sits $11 and $14 below its neighbouring days while Brent fell $4.91 and the WTI fund USO 3.1%; it is used as published and its effect is shown in §2. Taxes: EIA FAQ, federal and average state taxes as of 1 January 2026. ULSD and WTI futures settlements of 2 October are Bloomberg's (via Rigzone). EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report series for refinery inputs, utilization, gasoline and distillate stocks and product supplied, with full history from 1990 for the "highest since" comparison; PADD 3 and PADD 5 refinery inputs and utilization; US operable capacity, weekly (WOCLEUS2) and monthly (MOCLEUS2). Refinery closures and the January capacity figures: EIA, "U.S. refining capacity decreased during 2025", Today in Energy, 29 June 2026. EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026 workbook (modelling completed 1 October, posted 6 October), Table 2; the September edition's Brent path archived from the companion note; "wholesale diesel over refiner cost" is the house's difference of two STEO series, not an EIA crack. BLS CPI-U relative importance, December 2025; FRED CPI gasoline (all types) NSA, headline CPI. Equities: Robinhood daily bars, 3 August to 5 October 2026, and the official 5 October closes.
Russia. Reuters calculations and industry sources as carried by the Kyiv Independent (16 September), Kyiv Post (84579; 85471, 26 September), The Moscow Times (16 September; 30 September; 2 October, Novak) and Ukrainska Pravda (21 September); Bloomberg via The Moscow Times (3 August); Kpler, "Ukraine's drone campaign pushes Russian refinery runs to 21-year lows" (mid-July figures); KSE Institute, Russian Oil Tracker, September 2026 edition, and the KSE study as reported by the Financial Times and the Kyiv Independent (15 September); the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Luke Wickenden) and the Atlantic Council (Alan Riley) in the same Kyiv Independent piece; the diesel export decree as reported by TASS, Interfax and The Moscow Times (30 September); the gasoline and diesel ban as reported by The Moscow Times (30 July). Ukrainian Defence Ministry and General Staff percentages as reported by the Kyiv Independent (4 October) are carried as claims.
The Gulf. IEA Oil Market Report, September 2026 (August data): the 3.7 million barrels a day figure as carried by World Oil (11 September); "just over a quarter" and the February share of seaborne trade as carried by AP; "nearly 60%", the 390,000 barrels a day and the 1.6 million barrels a day figures as indexed from the report's summary, which the IEA site does not serve to automated retrieval. Kpler counts of 30 September as carried by CNBC; the 98% and 58% figures and Goldman's "roughly 50% of their 2025 average" as carried by Yahoo Finance (30 September). Kpler and Vortexa crude figures from the companion note.
Statements. The President, 5 October (Truth Social): Al Jazeera and Sinclair's CNY Central, verbatim across both. The President, 13 September (Doonbeg): as carried by AP and Fox News, with small differences in wording, and not quoted here. The President's Fox News account of the refinery request (reported 27–28 September) is carried by European Pravda, TASS and the Kyiv Independent in three different wordings and is paraphrased. Ukraine's president, 22 September (New York, after the meeting): Al Jazeera (published 23 September) and Ukrainska Pravda (5 October), paraphrased, the Pajhwok carry being a rewrite of Al Jazeera rather than an independent wire; 3 October: The Moscow Times, paraphrased. Deputy Prime Minister Novak, 2 October: Reuters via The Moscow Times, paraphrased. GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan via PolitiFact (15 September). The G7 statement of 2 October, text as posted by the Prime Minister of Canada; the SPR exchange of 40 million barrels via Rigzone (5 October).
Method. Retail = crude + crack + taxes + distribution-and-retail, cents a gallon, where crude is the WTI spot averaged over the Monday-to-Friday week before the survey divided by 42, the crack is the Gulf Coast spot product averaged over the same week minus that crude, taxes are fixed at the 1 January 2026 figures, and distribution-and-retail is the residual. Brent is run as the alternative crude and stored. Pre-war means are 5 January–27 February 2026 (spot) and the 5 January–23 February surveys (retail); the last pre-war survey is 23 February. Weekly means of the cracks are Monday-to-Friday means of the daily prints. The bracket is Russia ÷ (Russia + Gulf) on each measure's own basis, applied to the diesel crack premium over its pre-war mean; it is a range, not an estimate. The CPI figure is the survey-mean change times the December relative importance scaled by the gasoline index's rise relative to all items since December, before seasonal adjustment. All figures are produced by the note's archived scripts (data/pull_*.py, data/norm_quotes.py, data/analysis.py; the calendar and bracket inputs in data/events.json).
Limitations. EIA spot prices lag the survey by a week, so the 5 October decomposition uses two wholesale days; with WTI about $5 lower by 2 October (Bloomberg), that week's crude band is likely overstated by about 12 cents and is re-run when EIA posts. The distribution-and-retail term is a residual and carries the survey's noise. September's margin move depends on the crude benchmark. Gulf product-export figures are vendor estimates on different bases (the IEA against February; Kpler, Yahoo Finance's analysts and Goldman against pre-war or 2025) and three of the IEA figures are carried as indexed. Russian capacity figures are Reuters' and Bloomberg's industry-source calculations, not official. Futures history was not available to the desk and is not used. No single-number attribution is published.
Prior TON618 research. The Signature and the Lane (6 October 2026) found Gulf crude exports back at pre-war while refined-product exports ran 50–60% below, and archived the ICE Brent table from which the 5 October December settlement of $100.32 is implied (last 97.71, change −2.61); it is context here, not a prerequisite.
Disclosures
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