Gas prices vs crude oil: US pump prices for gasoline and diesel against WTI per gallon, weekly since 1993

1. How much of the US pump price is crude oil right now?

On 2 Nov 2026, crude oil accounted for 58.1% of the price of a gallon of regular gasoline and 39.6% of the price of a gallon of diesel: WTI cost $104.67 a barrel, or $2.49 per gallon, against pump prices of $4.290 and $6.292, according to our calculation from EIA retail and spot prices. The remainder, $1.80 a gallon for gasoline and $3.80 for diesel, is everything that happens between the wellhead and the nozzle: refining, pipeline and truck transport, wholesale and retail margin, and taxes. For gasoline the crude share is above its 2015–2025 average of 49.6%; for diesel it is below its average of 44.7%, because the non-crude part of the diesel price has grown faster than crude.

The weekly chart since January 2024 puts the three series on one scale. Gasoline and diesel moved roughly in parallel with crude through 2024 and 2025. After the war began at the end of February 2026 the diesel line broke away: on 23 Feb 2026 the two fuels were $3.809 and $3.072, by 21 Sep 2026 they were $6.529 and $4.610, with WTI at $102.45 a barrel.

Two cautions on the crude line. We use WTI, the US benchmark, because it is what US refiners mostly buy; Brent cost $118.87 a barrel in the same week, $14.20 more, so a crude share computed with Brent would come out higher and the margin lower. The gap between the two crudes, which has widened to record levels in 2026, is tracked on Brent–WTI spread. And a gallon of crude does not become a gallon of gasoline or diesel, so the crude share is an accounting measure, not a physical one. The daily crude price is on oil price today, and the glossary explains WTI.

3. Is the gap between pump prices and crude at a record?

For diesel, yes: the pump-minus-crude margin reached $4.13 a gallon on 28 Sep 2026 and $4.09 on 21 Sep 2026, the two highest weekly values since the EIA diesel series began in 1994, and the diesel pump price itself set its record at $6.53 on 21 Sep 2026, ahead of $6.38 on 28 Sep 2026 and $6.35 on 26 Oct 2026. On 2 Nov 2026 the diesel margin stood at $3.80, still far above the 2015–2025 average of $1.82. The 2026 average of $3.09 is 1.7 times the 2015–2025 mean, and compares with $2.73 in 2022, the previous high year, and $1.42 in 2008.

For gasoline the record still belongs to 2022: the margin peaked at $2.39 on 27 Jun 2022, and the pump price at $5.11 on 13 Jun 2022, in the months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The closest 2026 came was $2.35 on 28 Sep 2026, the second-highest gasoline margin in the record. On 2 Nov 2026 the gasoline margin was $1.80, against a 2015–2025 average of $1.47; the 2026 average of $1.95 is 1.3 times that mean. The yearly averages of the gasoline price itself tell the same story: $4.06 in 2022, $3.22 in 2025, $4.01 so far in 2026, still below the 2022 average despite WTI above $100 a barrel in several autumn weeks.

The monthly chart since 2000 shows why 2026 is different from every earlier spike. In 2008 and 2011–2014 the gasoline and diesel margins rose and fell together, and in 2022 diesel pulled ahead for a few months before the two converged again. In 2026 the diesel margin has detached: the diesel-minus-gasoline gap at the pump reached $2.00 a gallon on 2 Nov 2026, the widest in the record, after $1.95 on 26 Oct 2026 and $1.92 on 21 Sep 2026. The reasons, from distillate inventories at a seasonal record low to the disruption of Gulf product exports through Hormuz, are set out on why diesel costs more than gasoline; the inventory side is on US oil inventories. Records refer to EIA weekly national averages compared with every week of the series; they are nominal values, not adjusted for inflation.

Yearly averages of weekly values, own calculation.

5. What does the crude share tell drivers in the US and the UK?

A crude share of 58.1% for gasoline means that a $2.49-a-gallon WTI price explains most of the $4.290 at the pump, and that a fall in crude would be felt quickly; a crude share of 39.6% for diesel means that even a sharp fall in crude would leave most of the $6.292 diesel price untouched unless the diesel margin itself narrows. That is the practical difference between the two fuels in 2026. Gasoline drivers are paying for expensive crude; diesel buyers are paying for a shortage of the refined product. Heating oil, which is close to diesel, is on US diesel and heating oil prices.

British readers see the same mechanism with a different tax structure. UK fuel duty and VAT make up a far larger share of the pump price than US taxes do, so the crude share is lower and the percentage swings at the pump are smaller for the same move in Brent. Our UK page is petrol and diesel prices forecast, and the equivalent analysis for the European Union, diesel before taxes against Brent per litre, is on EU fuel prices vs Brent.

This page makes no forecast. It shows, for every week since 1993, how much of the US pump price was crude oil and how much was not; the other series of this site are listed on the data hub.

Download all values as CSV (UTF-8, raw values and calculation per row, stable URL; CC BY 4.0 for our calculation, raw data under the source's terms)

How to cite: Global Oil Shock (Jörg Dässler), “Gas Prices vs Crude Oil: US Pump Prices for Gasoline and Diesel Against WTI, Weekly Since 1993”, as of 5 Nov 2026, https://globaloilshock.com/en/data/gas-prices-vs-crude-oil/