# How do crude oil futures move diesel prices? > Crude oil futures move diesel prices indirectly: the main US contract, NYMEX light sweet crude, prices WTI for future delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, while diesel itself trades off the New York Harbor ULSD futures contract. Terminal racks reprice off that diesel market every evening, and the weekly DOE number catches the result only at its Monday snapshot. _Updated Sep 24, 2026._ Crude oil futures move diesel prices indirectly, through a chain with four links. The main US contract, NYMEX light sweet crude, sets the price of WTI crude for delivery in a future month at Cushing, Oklahoma. Diesel trades off its own futures contract, New York Harbor ULSD, and the gap between the two is what the market pays to turn a barrel of crude into diesel. Terminal racks reprice off that diesel market every day, the pump follows the rack, and the weekly DOE number records the result at its Monday snapshot. ## What a crude oil futures contract is A crude oil futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a set quantity of crude at an agreed price for delivery in a named future month. The US benchmark, light sweet crude oil on CME Group's New York Mercantile Exchange, covers 1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons), is quoted in dollars per barrel and is physically delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. EIA defines the grade as domestic crude with 0.42 percent sulfur by weight or less and an API gravity between 37 and 42 degrees. The "price of crude" in a headline is usually the front month, which EIA calls Contract 1: the contract with the earliest delivery date. Crude contracts expire on the third business day before the 25th calendar day of the month ahead of delivery, and the next month then becomes the front month. EIA's futures series use NYMEX's official daily close at 2:30 p.m. New York time. The physical barrel at the same delivery point is the WTI spot price at Cushing, which this site charts daily from EIA, with Brent and the pump price, on the [diesel price vs crude oil](/crude/diesel-vs-crude) page. Its latest print is $96.24/bbl. ## Diesel has its own futures contract Diesel is not priced off crude futures directly. It trades off NYMEX's New York Harbor ULSD contract: 42,000 gallons, quoted in dollars per gallon, for delivery in New York Harbor. The contract began as heating oil and switched to the ultra-low sulfur diesel specification, under 15 parts per million of sulfur, starting with the May 2013 contract, per EIA. Product contracts expire on the last business day of the month before delivery, a few days after the matching crude contract. Put the two contracts in the same unit by dividing the crude price by 42 gallons, and the difference is the crack spread: the market price of refining. Crude and the crack move separately. A refinery outage or an early cold snap can lift diesel while crude sits still, and a crude rally can be absorbed by a narrowing crack. [What is ULSD?](/guides/what-is-ulsd) covers the fuel spec behind the diesel contract. ## From futures to the rack Wholesale diesel is priced as a differential to that futures market. OPIS, the service that reports rack prices, describes a hub's spot price as the NYMEX price plus or minus a basis differential, and a terminal's rack price as the supplier's spot replacement cost: spot plus the freight and other costs of getting product to the terminal. Rack changes typically take effect at 6 p.m. each day, and a rack price excludes taxes and the freight from the terminal to the station. OPIS counts about 400 racks and more than 1,100 terminals in the US. So a rack buyer's price is anchored to the day's diesel futures settlement and the local basis, not to crude. This site does not carry rack prices, which have no free public daily feed. It carries EIA's daily ULSD spot quotes at [New York Harbor and the Gulf Coast](/spot/gulf-coast), the public layer the racks are built on. New York Harbor's latest print is $4.713/gal. [Retail, rack and spot](/guides/retail-rack-and-spot) walks the full ladder. ## From the rack to the pump and the DOE number A station's street price adds delivery, the 24.4 cents a gallon federal diesel tax, state taxes and fees that averaged 35.86 cents a gallon in January 2026 according to EIA, and the station's own costs and margin. EIA puts crude at about 51 percent of the average retail on-highway diesel price from 2004 through 2025, and at 43.6 percent in 2025 alone. Timing explains why a pump price can move before the DOE number does. Futures settle every trading day and racks reset every evening, but EIA's survey prices diesel as of Monday and posts it Tuesday. A futures move on a Tuesday can reach the rack that night and street prices over the following days, and [the DOE diesel price](/number/doe-diesel-price) records it only at the next Monday snapshot. A fuel surcharge pegged to that number trails the wholesale market by up to a week by design; [How fuel surcharges work](/guides/how-fuel-surcharges-work) covers the peg. [Chart: US retail diesel vs crude oil (WTI and Brent, converted to $/gal)](https://mondaydiesel.com/crude/diesel-vs-crude) ([data](https://mondaydiesel.com/crude/diesel-vs-crude.md) — chart image: https://mondaydiesel.com/charts/crude/diesel-vs-crude/chart.png) ## Worked example: one Monday down the chain Take Monday, Sep 14, 2026, from this site's own EIA series. - **Crude.** WTI spot at Cushing was $102.42 a barrel. Divided by 42, that is $2.439 a gallon. - **Diesel at the hub.** New York Harbor ULSD spot was $5.078 a gallon, $2.639 over crude. Across the daily pairs this site carries since mid-2021, that same gap has a median of $0.848, so the refining layer was running at about three times its usual size. - **The pump.** The DOE number for the week was $6.285, $1.339 over Gulf Coast ULSD spot of $4.946: the taxes, freight and retail layer. Crude was 38.8 percent of the pump price, against a median of 45.1 percent across the survey Mondays this site carries. The next day WTI rose $4.60 to $107.02 a barrel, about 11 cents a gallon, and New York Harbor ULSD rose 26.0 cents to $5.338, so the crack widened by another 15 cents. The Sep 14 survey had already been taken. The next DOE number, for Sep 21, came in at $6.529, up 24.4 cents. Monday Diesel reports these prices as EIA publishes them. It does not forecast crude, the crack or the pump, and none of this is a view on when to buy fuel. ## Related data + guides - [Diesel price vs crude oil, with WTI and Brent](https://mondaydiesel.com/crude/diesel-vs-crude) - [Diesel spot prices: Gulf Coast and New York Harbor](https://mondaydiesel.com/spot/gulf-coast) - [This week's DOE diesel price](https://mondaydiesel.com/number/doe-diesel-price) - [Retail, rack and spot: the diesel price ladder](https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/retail-rack-and-spot) - [What is ULSD?](https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/what-is-ulsd) - [How fuel surcharges work](https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/how-fuel-surcharges-work) ## Common questions ### What are crude oil futures? Exchange-traded contracts to buy or sell crude at a set price for delivery in a future month. The main US contract, NYMEX light sweet crude (WTI), covers 1,000 barrels delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma, quoted in dollars per barrel. The crude price in the news is usually the front-month contract, the one with the earliest delivery date. ### Do diesel prices follow crude oil futures? Partly. Crude averaged about 51 percent of the retail on-highway diesel price from 2004 through 2025, per EIA, so a large crude move reaches the pump. But diesel trades off its own New York Harbor ULSD futures contract, and the gap between that contract and crude, the crack spread, moves on refinery outages, inventories and heating demand. Diesel can rise in a week crude falls. ### What is the difference between WTI crude futures and ULSD futures? WTI futures price crude oil at Cushing, Oklahoma, in dollars per barrel. New York Harbor ULSD futures price finished ultra-low sulfur diesel delivered in New York Harbor, in dollars per gallon, 42,000 gallons a contract. Divide the crude price by 42 and subtract it from the ULSD price to get the crack spread. ### Why does the pump price move before the DOE diesel number? Futures settle every trading day and rack prices typically reset at 6 p.m. each day, per OPIS, but EIA's survey is a Monday snapshot posted Tuesday. A midweek move reaches the rack and the street within days and shows up in the [DOE diesel price](/number/doe-diesel-price) only the following Monday. ### Does Monday Diesel show futures or rack prices? No. It charts EIA's daily spot prices for WTI crude at Cushing and for ULSD at New York Harbor and the Gulf Coast, plus the weekly on-highway survey. The ULSD spot quotes sit on the futures price plus a basis differential; rack prices have no free public daily source. --- Canonical URL: https://mondaydiesel.com/guides/crude-oil-futures-and-diesel-rack