Gasoline: how crude oil gets from the well to the pump

By Alykhan Virani. Published 2026-10-10.

Part 4 of the series From source to store.

Getting gasoline to the pump took a bigger slice of its price than refining it did. In 2025 the average US retail price of regular gasoline was $3.10 a gallon ($0.82 a liter), and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) split it into 51.4% crude oil, 17.8% distribution and marketing, 16.6% taxes and 14.3% refining costs and profits. Crude oil alone was about $1.59 of that gallon. The site tracks crude oil, not gasoline, so the production and trade figures below describe crude and the gasoline figures come from EIA.

How it is extracted

Oil is trapped in the pore spaces of underground rock layers, and in some places it soaks sand near the surface (EIA). Drillers reach it from land, from offshore platforms and, in shale, with horizontal wells. In 2022 the Federal Offshore Gulf of Mexico (renamed the Gulf of America by US federal agencies in January 2025 under Executive Order 14172) supplied about 15% of US crude oil, from thousands of platforms, most in water up to 1,800 meters (6,000 feet) deep and a few at 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) or more (EIA).

Shale needs horizontal drilling, which exposes more reservoir than a vertical well, plus hydraulic fracturing, in which crews pump water, additives and sand at high pressure to open cracks that release oil and gas (USGS). A USGS water-use project begun in 2015 cites about 7.6 million liters (2 million gallons) per oil well for initial fracturing in tight shale, and a separate USGS analysis found median use in horizontal oil wells above 15 million liters (4 million gallons) by 2014 (USGS). Tight oil supplied about 8.32 million barrels a day in 2023, 64% of US crude oil production alone (EIA). In 2025 the United States produced 21.1 million barrels a day, 20.9% of the world’s 100.6 million, the largest share of any country (Energy Institute Statistical Review, which also counts condensates and natural gas liquids).

A well yields more than oil. In 1993 US wells produced about 2.5 billion barrels of crude and roughly 25 billion barrels of water, and the water share rises as a field ages (USGS). Gas comes up with oil too: Saudi Arabia flared 88 billion cubic feet of associated natural gas in 2023 (EIA). Gathering pipelines collect crude from the wells, and larger crude pipeline systems, from tens to hundreds of miles in length, carry it to refineries (PHMSA, the US pipeline safety regulator).

Moving crude

Pipelines move oil over land and tankers over water. A very large crude carrier (VLCC) holds about 2 million barrels, a Suezmax 900,000 to 1 million and an Aframax about 500,000, so one VLCC carries as much as four Aframaxes (EIA, 2018). A VLCC is up to about 320,000 deadweight tonnes and 330 meters long (Notteboom, Pallis and Rodrigue, 2026). Oil tankers made up 28% of world shipping by deadweight tonnage in 2024 (UNCTAD, cited by EIA).

A chokepoint is a narrow shipping route, such as a strait or canal, through which a large share of a commodity’s seaborne trade must pass. In the first half of 2025, 79.8 million barrels a day of oil moved by sea, 76% of world supply of 104.4 million (EIA). Volumes through four passages, in million barrels a day:

Source: EIA, World Oil Transit Chokepoints, updated March 2026.

Malacca carried 29% of maritime oil flows in the first half of 2025 and Hormuz about one quarter (EIA). The Turkish Straits, which include the Bosporus, are less than half a nautical mile (926 meters) wide at the narrowest point, and more than 45,000 vessels passed through them in 2024 (EIA). Of the crude oil and condensate through Hormuz in the first half of 2025, 89% went to Asia and 74% to China, India, Japan and South Korea (EIA). Those four countries bought 46.6% of world crude imports by value in 2024 (CEPII BACI).

In 2024 the world traded $1,324.2 billion of crude oil, 2,397 million tonnes (CEPII BACI, HS 2709). Saudi Arabia sold $186.9 billion, 14.1% of value, but the United Arab Emirates (UAE) shipped more by weight, 311.3 million tonnes against 309.2 million. The largest corridor was Canada to the United States at $100.5 billion, 7.6% of world crude trade and 59.4% of US crude imports by value. Saudi Arabia’s largest was to China, $47.9 billion or 25.6% of its sales. BACI values trade free on board, so these are prices at the loading port, before freight (see FOB, CIF and Incoterms).

Ports join the pipelines to the ships. Aramco’s Juaymah terminal lies 11 kilometers (7 miles) offshore and 29 kilometers (18 miles) from Ras Tanura, with six single point mooring berths and a stated maximum crude loading rate of 130,000 barrels an hour (Aramco, Juaymah Crude (SPM) Terminal rules and general information). Rotterdam handled 428.4 million tonnes of cargo in 2025, 101.2 million of it crude oil, or 23.6% (Port of Rotterdam). The Houston-Galveston port district took slightly more than half of US crude exports from mid-2017 to 2018, though onshore Gulf Coast ports could not fully load VLCCs (EIA, 2018). Ningbo-Zhoushan ranked first in the world by cargo throughput for a 17th year, at more than 1.4 billion tonnes in 2025, with containers, iron ore and crude oil among its flows (Xinhua; China Daily). The site’s data do not split China’s 526.6 million tonnes of crude imports in 2024 by port.

At Cushing, Oklahoma, working storage capacity was 78.4 million barrels on March 1, 2024, 11.5% of the 683.7 million barrels of US commercial crude storage (EIA, Form EIA-813). WTI futures deliver there, at any pipeline or storage facility with access to Enterprise, Enbridge or Plains (CME Group, 2026). Brent, the most widely used global benchmark, prices cargoes of six grades since 2023: Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, Troll and WTI Midland (S&P Global Platts; see Dated Brent). In 2013 the original four North Sea grades loaded 0.86 million barrels a day, about 1% of world crude oil production (EIA, 2014). In September 2026 the World Bank put Brent at $116.80 a barrel, WTI at $96.90 and Dubai Fateh at $93.30 (World Bank Pink Sheet).

Refining

A refinery separates, converts and treats (EIA). Distillation heats crude and sorts it by boiling point, and the lightest fractions, gasoline among them, collect near the top of the column. Cracking breaks heavy molecules into lighter ones, reforming reshapes naphtha into components with a high octane rating, and operators then blend several streams to hit octane and vapor pressure specifications.

A 42-gallon barrel of crude gave US refineries 44.65 gallons of products in 2023, a 6.3% processing gain because products are less dense than crude. Finished motor gasoline was 19.57 gallons, 43.8% of output, ahead of distillate fuel oil at 12.47 gallons (27.9%) and jet fuel at 4.41 gallons (9.9%) (EIA).

The crude matters. API gravity measures density, and a higher number means lighter oil, which gives more gasoline by simple distillation, while heavy crude needs more expensive processing (EIA). Light, low-sulfur (sweet) crude usually sells at a premium to heavy, sour crude; the spread averaged about $12 a barrel in 2018 (EIA). The average API gravity of US refinery inputs rose from 30.2 degrees in 2005 to 33.0 in the first half of 2022 (EIA). Brent is 38 degrees API and Dubai Fateh 32, and Brent traded $23.50 a barrel above Dubai Fateh in September 2026, against $11.20 in August (World Bank Pink Sheet).

Pipelines, terminals and trucks to the pump

Most gasoline leaves a refinery by pipeline for terminals near consumers, shipped in batches that touch and are tested before delivery (EIA). Colonial Pipeline, which calls itself America’s largest refined products pipeline by volume, delivers more than 100 million gallons of fuel a day over more than 8,850 kilometers (5,500 miles) from Houston to New York Harbor (Colonial Pipeline, 2026). Tanker trucks then take gasoline to smaller blending terminals, where ethanol goes in, and on to more than 100,000 retail outlets (EIA). In 2023 about 13.73 billion gallons of ethanol went into 137.11 billion gallons of US gasoline, 10.0% by volume (EIA).

NACS, a convenience store trade group, counted 151,975 US convenience stores at the end of 2025. Of those, 122,620 sold motor fuel, and convenience stores sold an estimated 80% of the fuel Americans bought. Companies with 10 or fewer stores owned 63% of all convenience stores and chains of 500 or more owned 22.2% (NACS/NIQ, 2026). In January 2026 the federal gasoline tax was 18.40 cents a gallon and the average of total state taxes was 33.27 cents, 51.67 cents combined, excluding county and local taxes (EIA fuel tax FAQ).

Where the chain is thin

Which straits does crude depend on?

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi pipeline could provide about 4.7 million barrels a day of capacity to bypass Hormuz, 32% of the 14.7 million barrels a day of crude oil and condensate that passed in the first half of 2025 (EIA). After attacks on Red Sea shipping began in November 2023, flows through Suez and SUMED fell from 8.8 million barrels a day in 2023 to 4.8 million in 2024 (EIA).

Update, 11 October 2026. The figures above run to the first half of 2025 and pre-date the 2026 disruption. EIA’s April 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook described the Strait of Hormuz as “effectively closed to shipping traffic” since military action began on 28 February 2026. EIA estimates total oil flows through the strait at 21.6 million barrels a day in the fourth quarter of 2025, 14.9 in the first quarter of 2026 and 4.9 in the second quarter; these estimates are revised often because ship-tracking data for the strait have been unreliable since late February. EIA’s October 2026 outlook assumes Middle East oil flows stay constrained through the fourth quarter of 2026. The 4.7 million barrels a day of bypass capacity is the figure from EIA’s March 2026 edition, not a measure of what moved in 2026; EIA says attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline temporarily halted it in September, with partial flows resuming on 22 September. See the chokepoints register.

Why do hurricanes matter for refineries?

The Gulf Coast holds 55% of US refining capacity, and the Texas and Louisiana coasts alone hold 49% (EIA, 2025). The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and storm damage closed Phillips 66’s Alliance refinery at Belle Chasse, Louisiana, for good in 2021 (EIA, 2025).

Why do pump prices differ by region?

About one-third of US gasoline is reformulated to cut smog, and California’s program is stricter than the federal one, with few refineries making its blend (EIA). In 2025 regular gasoline averaged $4.094 a gallon on the West Coast and $2.677 on the Gulf Coast, a gap of $1.417 (EIA).

Follow the data

The crude oil commodity page has the full producer ranking, and the price page has the Brent history. The trade flows report maps the corridors, and how much is left covers reserves. The producing, exporting and processing guide explains why the rankings differ, and the benchmarks guide explains Brent, WTI and Dubai. The glossary defines refining, benchmark, FOB and CIF. The companion article is crude oil: who produces it, who buys it.

Gasoline is not tracked as a separate series, so the retail prices, margins and station counts here come from EIA and NACS, not this site’s pipeline. Nothing here is investment advice.

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; informational only, not investment advice.