How wholesale gasoline prices flow to the pump
Crude oil becomes a wholesale gasoline price at trading hubs, then passes through terminals, distributors, and stations. This guide follows that chain and measures the lag with daily and weekly EIA data.
From refinery to station
A refinery sells gasoline in bulk, long before any driver sees a price. The EIA describes the physical path: most gasoline moves by pipeline from refineries to large storage terminals near where it will be used. From there it goes to smaller blending terminals, where ethanol is typically added. Tanker trucks then deliver the finished fuel to more than 100,000 retail outlets. [1] Each step adds cost, and each handoff has its own price.
The first of those prices that is published daily is the spot price. The EIA defines a spot price as the price of a one-time open-market sale “for immediate delivery of a specific quantity of product at a specific location.” [2] This site tracks the EIA’s daily New York Harbor conventional gasoline spot price, a bulk price for gasoline delivered in New York Harbor, with records back to 1986. [5] On September 22, 2026 it was $3.551 a gallon. The U.S. average retail price for the week of September 21, 2026 was $4.48. The difference between those two numbers is what this guide measures.
New York Harbor Conventional Gasoline Regular Spot Price FOB (Dollars per Gallon) — the last 12 months of the EIA’s daily series. A bulk price at one trading hub, before taxes, distribution, and station margin.
What a gallon pays for
The EIA splits the retail price into four parts. In 2025, when regular gasoline averaged about $3.10 a gallon, the shares were: [3]
| Component, 2025 | Share | ≈ per gallon |
|---|---|---|
| Crude oil | 51.4% | $1.59 |
| Distribution and marketing | 17.8% | $0.55 |
| Federal and state taxes | 16.6% | $0.51 |
| Refining costs and profits | 14.3% | $0.44 |
Shares from the EIA; the per-gallon column applies each share to the EIA’s 2025 average and is rounded.
A wholesale spot price already includes the first and fourth rows, crude oil and refining. What it leaves out is taxes and the distribution and marketing share: pipeline and truck transport, terminal and blending costs, and the station’s own costs and margin. The refining share is the one that moves the most from month to month. It is covered in what is a crack spread.
The gap between the hub and the pump
The table compares the average U.S. retail price with the average NY Harbor spot price over the same period. The difference is the gross amount added between the bulk market and the pump.
| Period | U.S. retail | NY Harbor spot | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000–2004 | $1.53 | $0.88 | $0.65 |
| 2005–2009 | $2.65 | $1.91 | $0.73 |
| 2010–2014 | $3.36 | $2.65 | $0.71 |
| 2015–2019 | $2.46 | $1.66 | $0.80 |
| 2020 | $2.17 | $1.18 | $0.99 |
| 2021 | $3.01 | $2.13 | $0.88 |
| 2022 | $3.95 | $3.08 | $0.87 |
| 2023 | $3.52 | $2.60 | $0.92 |
| 2024 | $3.30 | $2.33 | $0.97 |
| 2025 | $3.10 | $2.01 | $1.09 |
| 2026YTD | $3.81 | $2.98 | $0.83 |
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration. Retail is the weekly U.S. average for regular gasoline (all formulations); spot is the daily New York Harbor conventional gasoline price. Multi-year rows average the yearly figures.
In 2000–2004 the spread averaged 65.3¢ a gallon. In 2025, the latest full year, it was $1.09, the widest of any full year on record. The spread is not a profit figure. It includes the federal tax of 18.4¢ a gallon, which has not changed since 1993, plus state taxes, transport, and retail costs. It also reflects the fact that the national average includes states whose fuel costs more to make than NY Harbor conventional gasoline. The largest of those is California, whose premium over the U.S. average has grown since 2015 (see why gas prices differ by state).
The spread also moves when wholesale prices move quickly. In 2020 the spot price fell faster than retail, and the spread widened. That leads to the question of timing.
How fast wholesale moves reach the pump
We estimated the timing from 2000 through 2025 (1,350 weeks). Each EIA retail price is paired with the average spot price over the week before it. The weekly change in retail is then related to the current and previous six weeks of spot changes, with increases and decreases measured separately. The table shows how much of a one-cent wholesale move has reached the national average after each week.
| Weeks after the move | Wholesale rise | Wholesale fall |
|---|---|---|
| Same week | 55% | 31% |
| +1 | 71% | 57% |
| +2 | 78% | 71% |
| +3 | 81% | 82% |
| +4 | 87% | 88% |
| +5 | 90% | 90% |
| +6 | 89% | 96% |
Cumulative pass-through from an asymmetric distributed-lag regression of weekly U.S. retail price changes on weekly changes in the mean New York Harbor conventional gasoline spot price, full calendar years only. Computed from EIA data each time this page loads.
Increases reach the pump faster. In the week of a wholesale rise, about 55% of it shows up in the national average, compared with 31% of a fall. After one more week the figures are 71% and 57%, and after two they are 78% and 71%. By the sixth week the two reach similar levels (89% and 96%), so the difference is mostly about timing, not about how much of a move is eventually passed through. Neither figure is exactly 100%, in part because a national average of many regional markets does not track one East Coast hub cent for cent.
This pattern is known as “rockets and feathers.” A 1997 study by economists Severin Borenstein, A. Colin Cameron, and Richard Gilbert found that retail gasoline prices respond more quickly to crude oil increases than to decreases. In their data, most of an increase reached the pump within about four weeks, while decreases took about eight. [4] Our estimate starts from wholesale gasoline rather than crude and uses a more recent period, and it finds a smaller, shorter asymmetry. The direction is the same.
Where the outside claims come from
- [1]U.S. EIA, Energy Explained — “Where our gasoline comes from”: pipelines to storage terminals, ethanol blending at terminals, truck delivery to more than 100,000 retail outlets
- [2]U.S. EIA, Spot Prices — definitions: “spot price” and the New York Harbor delivery location
- [3]U.S. EIA, Energy Explained — “Factors affecting gasoline prices”: 2025 components of the retail price of regular gasoline
- [4]Borenstein, Cameron & Gilbert, “Do Gasoline Prices Respond Asymmetrically to Crude Oil Price Changes?”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 112(1), 1997
- [5]U.S. EIA, daily spot prices — New York Harbor conventional gasoline (series EER_EPMRU_PF4_Y35NY_DPG)
The retail prices, spot prices, spreads, and pass-through estimates are computed from U.S. Energy Information Administration data held in our own database. The federal tax rate is from the EIA’s motor fuel tax table.