US refiners have shifted production away from gasoline and toward middle distillates this year, the Energy Information Administration said in an analysis published on November 5. Gasoline yields averaged less than 45 percent from January through August and were well below the five year low in every month, a marked departure for a fleet that typically produces 45 to 50 barrels of gasoline from every 100 barrels of crude it processes.
The EIA attributed the shift to margins. Distillate fuel oil and jet fuel have carried particularly high refinery margins in 2026 because global supplies of both fuels are constrained, and refiners have moved as much yield as possible into those products despite high gasoline prices at the pump. The three main products together normally account for 85 to 90 percent of what the US fleet produces, so a move of this size in gasoline yield is a direct transfer into diesel and jet fuel.
Distillate yields ran above the five year average in every month through August and generally higher than a year earlier. Jet fuel went further: the fleetwide yield exceeded 12 percent for the first time in March 2026 and stayed at or above 12 percent through August, extending a run in which jet fuel yields were already setting five year highs through most of 2025.
OilPrice, reporting the same EIA release, placed the shift in its global context. Global refinery crude runs fell 4.8 million barrels a day in the second quarter as the Iran war disrupted Middle Eastern refining and Ukrainian attacks restricted Russian product supply, and diesel prices reached their highest nominal levels on record in September. US refiners raised crude processing by about 500,000 barrels a day in each of the second and third quarters, partly compensating for lost output elsewhere.
The yield data give the product side of the stock story this site reported earlier in the week, when distillate inventories fell to 99.3 million barrels, the lowest since May 2003. Refiners are already running hard toward distillates; the stocks are low because global supply, not US refinery intent, is the binding constraint.