The 3:2:1 crack spread is down to 52.92, a drop of 16.91 over the past month

Refining margin took the hit this month. The 3:2:1 crack is 52.92, down 16.91 from thirty days ago, and the reason is the split between crude and product. Brent is 109.1, up 8.7 percent, and it is at the 98 percent mark of its 30-day range, right against the high of 109.86. RBOB gasoline went the other way, down 12.0 percent to 3.054, near the bottom at the 29 percent mark of its range. Crude costs more to buy and the gasoline coming out the other end is worth less, so the margin between them closed by almost 17 points.

For anyone pricing against the wholesale rack, the diesel street margin tells the same story in cents. The retail-wholesale spread is 1.356, down 0.283 over thirty days, so roughly 28 cents a gallon came out of that gap. Diesel futures held up better than gasoline, down 3.9 percent to 4.699 and still at the 67 percent mark of their range, but the retail side did not keep pace with wholesale, and the margin tightened accordingly.

Natural gas storage is the other number worth a glance. It is 3567, up 8.2 percent, sitting at the 100 percent mark of its range, so every bit of the last thirty days went into building inventory. That is a full tank heading into the season, and it is a cost input for anyone running gas-fired equipment.

Brent is the one to watch. It is pressed against the top of its 30-day range, and if it holds there or pushes higher, wholesale gasoline and diesel could follow it up over the next couple of weeks even with product prices soft right now. Refinery utilization is 16.615, down 4.1 percent and at the midpoint of its range, so there is no supply surge in the pipeline to offset a crude move. Watch whether Brent backs off the high or settles in.