The US government's emergency crude oil stockpile, held in underground salt caverns, used to buffer supply disruptions and price shocks.
Brent crude traded at $108.70 a barrel at 7:15 a.m. Eastern on October 14, roughly $46 above the same morning last year, according to Fortune. Against an implied $62.70 a year ago that is a rise of about 73%, a gap any fuel budget set on last year's costs has to fund.
Reality
IEA members agreed Oct. 7 to speed up the 400 million-barrel oil release and put diesel first, with public stocks near 1.1 billion barrels. Those stocks were above 1.2 billion in March, a fall of about 100 million, a quarter of the pledge.
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Brent crude sat at $104.74 a barrel on October 7, roughly $38.60 above a year earlier, according to Fortune's daily price page. A fuel or input budget built on last year's price now pays for just under two-thirds of the barrels it assumed.
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Brent fell $2.56 to $100.19 a barrel on Sept. 29, still $32.86 above a year earlier, according to Fortune. Anyone buying fuel is still paying about 49% more per barrel than last autumn, and the day's drop narrows that gap only slightly.
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Brent crude sold for $104.46 a barrel on Sept. 28, up $37.13 over the past year, according to Fortune. Fuel budgets built on last year's barrel need resetting, even though the data confirms only two sessions above $100.
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GasBuddy has California's diesel average at $7.91 a gallon and the national average past $6 for the first time. The extra $700m a day Americans are paying for fuel works out near $255bn over a year.
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Crude topped $101 and US diesel passed $200 a barrel for only the second time ever, leaving roughly $99 of refining margin between them, the piece of the shock that sits in refining capacity, not crude supply.
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Traders put 7 to 8 million barrels a day back through the Strait while US reserve draws fell about 40 percent, which leaves heavy Canadian feedstock, not Gulf crude volume, as the number that sets American diesel costs.
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