Diesel is near its 30-day high while gasoline is near its low

Diesel is doing the work right now. The pump average is $5.454 a gallon, up 6.2 percent over the past 30 days, and it is sitting at the 91 percent mark of its month range. ULSD futures tell the same story at $4.379, up 6.1 percent and at 95 percent of their range, close to the top. If you haul diesel, you are buying near the high end of what the market has shown over the last month.

Gasoline went the other way. RBOB is $2.998 a gallon, down 12 percent over 30 days, and it is at the 24 percent mark of its range, near the bottom. The two products are pulling far apart right now. Where diesel is strong, gasoline is soft, and anyone pricing both at the rack is watching one climb while the other slides.

The diesel street margin held. The retail-wholesale spread is $1.017 a gallon, up two-tenths of a cent over the month, so the gap between what a retailer pays and what they charge barely moved even as the underlying cost rose. That is a flat margin on a rising base, which means the cost increase is passing straight through to the pump rather than getting absorbed.

The refiner side is where the pressure showed up. The 3:2:1 crack spread is 57.68, down 10.55 over 30 days. That is a real narrowing of the margin on turning a barrel of crude into gasoline and diesel, and most of the give came from the gasoline leg falling while crude held firmer.

Diesel could hold near this level if the futures market stays this tight, but with the crack spread this much thinner than a month ago, refiners may lean toward diesel output and let gasoline stay cheap, which would keep the two products split the way they are today.