AAA put the national average for regular at $4.0093 on Nov. 9, down from $4.3718 a month earlier, a drop of about 36 cents. Diesel averaged $6.1723 the same day. That is $2.16 a gallon above regular and still close to the $6.5276 record AAA logged on Sept. 22.
Gasoline is following crude lower. Diesel is following a tight market for distillate fuel, and that market does not loosen just because a barrel of crude gets cheaper.
Crude fell, and gasoline followed
AAA’s Nov. 5 weekly release put the slide down to crude oil falling back into the high $80s to low $90s a barrel. The same release said the national average had never topped $4 in a November before this year. Even after the drop, regular is $0.94 above the $3.0699 AAA recorded a year ago.
A refinery splits each barrel of crude into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products, and each sells at its own price. The difference between a product’s price and the crude behind it is the crack spread. EIA’s review of the third quarter found that gasoline’s crack spread more than doubled from a year earlier, while distillate, the diesel-type cut, almost tripled. Jet fuel almost tripled as well. EIA listed disrupted refining in Russia, China and the Middle East, heavy U.S. exports, attacks on energy infrastructure and disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz among the causes.
EIA’s earlier first-quarter review dated the de facto closure of the strait to military action in the Middle East on Feb. 28. It put the New York Harbor distillate crack spread at $1.42 a gallon in March, against an average of 68 cents for 2021 through 2025.
When crude falls, both fuels get cheaper feedstock. Diesel carries a much fatter margin on top of that feedstock, and a lower crude price does not remove the margin. That is The Auto Wire’s reading of the EIA figures, not an EIA finding.
Diesel is up far more than gasoline from a year ago
EIA’s weekly survey for Oct. 26, the latest week I could confirm on EIA’s page, had regular at $4.269, up $1.234 from a year earlier. On-highway diesel was $6.352, up $2.634. Backing out the year-ago prices gives about $3.035 for gasoline and $3.718 for diesel, so regular is up roughly 41% and diesel roughly 71%. The premium of diesel over regular was $2.083 that week, against $0.683 a year before.
Thin distillate stocks going into winter
EIA’s October Short-Term Energy Outlook said East Coast distillate inventories were 32% below the five-year seasonal average in September and are expected to stay about 20% below the 2021–2025 average through the winter. Nationally, distillate stocks were 13% below the 2021–2025 average in the week ending Sept. 25, according to the third-quarter review, while gasoline stocks were 7% below. Distillate includes home heating oil as well as diesel, so a cold Northeast draws on the same inventory that trucks depend on. Nothing in EIA’s inventory outlook points to quick diesel relief.
What the gap costs at the pump and the dock
A 15-gallon fill of regular at AAA’s national average costs $60.14 now, against $65.58 a month ago, a saving of $5.44. A 30-gallon fill of diesel costs $185.17, which is $64.89 more than 30 gallons of regular at $120.28. Those tank sizes are my illustration, not a vehicle spec.
Diesel also fuels the trucks that stock stores and dealer lots. That cost reaches shelf and sticker prices through freight rates, though how fast depends on each carrier’s contracts. Gas at $4 has already pushed buyers toward hybrids at a record 16% of new-car sales, and the Thanksgiving drive-or-fly math we ran last week used $4.12 gas, a figure that has since fallen.
What to watch
EIA’s November Short-Term Energy Outlook is due Nov. 10. The October edition assumed Brent at $105 a barrel in the fourth quarter and forecast 2026 averages of $3.91 a gallon for gasoline and $5.19 for diesel. AAA does not name a benchmark for the high-$80s to low-$90s crude it cites, but if that is Brent, the forecast and the market sit well apart, and the November edition has to reconcile them. Past that, the weekly EIA inventory data for East Coast distillate will say more about diesel than the crude price will.
Is a $4 gallon of regular real relief if diesel stays above $6, or is the number on the pump in front of you the only one you feel?