Why has WTI crude fallen 4.6% over the past month?

WTI crude is 85.19, down 4.6% over the past thirty days. A drop that size changes what an operator pays for the next load, so the question is what pushed it down and whether the same force is still working.

Look first at how far crude actually traveled. The 30-day high is 108.66 and the low is 68.25. The current 85.19 is well below that high and well above that low, so the month was not a steady slide. Crude ran up, then came off. A 4.6% net drop over thirty days hides a much wider round trip inside the window.

Petroleum inventories tell part of why. Stocks are 428.815, up 4.2% over the month, off a 30-day high of 465.729. More barrels in storage usually take pressure off crude, and a 4.2% build is consistent with a price that softened. Supply was not scarce during most of this window.

Brent moved almost the same way. It is 92.95, down 4.0% over thirty days, with a high of 114.44 and a low of 71.57. When the global benchmark and the U.S. benchmark fall by close to the same amount, the cause is not a local U.S. story. Something moved the whole crude market, not just Cushing.

The wire fills in the recent end of the window. An OilPrice report has WTI at $85.18, down 2.16% on the day, with Brent at $92.32, down 2.19%, on profit-taking as traders waited on a new U.S. sanctions package against Iran. The same report says both benchmarks gained more than 5% last week as Iranian crude exports dropped and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a trickle. So the last stretch of this month was not falling. Crude bounced hard last week and then gave a little back on Monday. The 4.6% net decline was earned earlier in the thirty days and partly clawed back near the end.

The obvious read is that cheaper crude made everything downstream cheaper. Gasoline says yes, and more. RBOB is 2.991, down 11.9% over the month, off a high of 3.761. Gasoline fell far harder than crude did. A crude drop of a few percent does not produce a double-digit gasoline drop on its own, so gasoline had its own weakness on top of the crude move, likely soft summer demand and comfortable product supply.

Diesel breaks the pattern completely. Diesel is 5.454, up 6.2% over thirty days, with a high of 5.643. Crude fell, gasoline fell hard, and diesel rose. When the two main products split like that, the barrel is not the whole story. Something is tightening distillate while crude and gasoline ease.

The wire points at the distillate side. Ukrainian drones hit Russia's Lukoil refinery in the interior and the Novokuibyshevsk refinery. Refinery outages pull product off the market, and diesel is the product most exposed to lost Russian and export capacity. A 6.2% diesel gain while crude falls fits a supply scare in refined distillate rather than anything happening to the crude barrel.

The diesel retail-wholesale spread barely moved. It is 1.017 now, up 0.002 over the month. Retailers selling diesel are passing the higher wholesale cost through and holding about the same margin per gallon they held thirty days ago. The people who buy diesel to burn are paying the increase; the people who sell it kept their cut steady, which is what you would expect from a market where the cost went up for a real reason.

The 3:2:1 crack spread is 58.58, down 5.72 over the month. Refiners earned less per barrel of crude run this month than last, though 58.58 is still a workable number for a plant that was running.

Set against the crude drop, the coverage lines up with where the pressure is. Prices drew 1605 items in the last fourteen days, International 1086, Refining & Markets 1048, and Diesel & Freight 812. Attention followed the same split the numbers show, crude and price action first, then the refining and distillate story underneath it.

So the honest answer. WTI's 4.6% monthly fall looks driven by stocks building through the window, up 4.2%, plus profit-taking after a run, with the drop deepest earlier in the month and partly recovered on last week's Iran bounce. Brent falling nearly the same amount says the cause is global supply and demand, not a U.S. quirk. What it means for operators is not one thing. Gasoline buyers got real relief, down 11.9%, and gasoline retailers have room in that. Diesel buyers are paying up, 6.2% higher, because refinery outages are tightening distillate faster than cheaper crude can loosen it. What I am not sure of is whether the crude decline holds. With the Strait of Hormuz slowed, a sanctions package pending, and Russian refineries under drone attack, the same barrels that fell 4.6% could firm again on any one of those, and I would not price the next load as if the drop is settled.

And that was just the data. See you tomorrow.