Goldman Sachs Doubles Its 2027 Diesel Margin Forecast to $63 a Barrel as Refined Fuel Exports Stay Stuck at 40% of Pre-War Levels

Since the diesel crack spread first blew past $100 a barrel earlier this month, according to CNN Business, the gap between crude oil and finished fuel has only widened. Goldman Sachs made that official on August 29, sharply raising its 2027 diesel margin forecast and confirming what truckers, farmers and refiners already knew: crude is coming back, diesel is not.

Goldman's commodities team now expects U.S. diesel-to-Brent crude margins to average $63 a barrel in 2027, up from a February forecast of $27, according to OilPrice.com. European margins were raised to $49 a barrel from $19. Both forecasts more than doubled in six months.

Crude Can Move. Refineries Can't.

The reason is structural. Persian Gulf crude oil exports have recovered to 70-80% of pre-war levels, according to Goldman's own tanker-tracking estimates cited by All Weather Finance. Refined product exports out of the same region, meanwhile, are running at only about 40% of pre-war volume.

Crude can be rerouted around the Strait of Hormuz through ship-to-ship transfers, transponders switched off, and new corridors Iran and Oman are building. A bombed refinery cannot be rerouted anywhere. "Goldman Sachs believes that crude oil can be diverted, but refineries cannot be moved," the bank wrote, calling that the key difference between this shortage and past oil shocks, as relayed by All Weather Finance.

Global refined product exports fell roughly 6 million barrels a day, about 25%, year over year, with the Persian Gulf accounting for 3.2 million barrels a day of that drop and Russia another 1.1 million, per Goldman's data. Diesel export volumes fell 22% year over year, jet fuel 20%, fuel oil 32%. Crude exports overall dropped just 10%. Diesel profit margins are up 225% year over year, jet fuel up 234%, crude oil up only 34%.

Goldman does not see this fixing itself soon. The bank projects global refinery utilization won't return to normal until the second half of 2027, according to All Weather Finance's summary of the report.

What's Driving the Refinery Damage

The underlying causes are the same ones that have run through this crisis for months. Iran war strikes have hit Middle East refineries directly. Ukrainian drone attacks have knocked out roughly 40% of Russia's refining capacity, according to S&P Global's Debnil Chowdhury, cited by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Bank of America pegged Russian refinery throughput at 3.9 million barrels a day in July, down from 5.3 million a year earlier.

That forced Moscow to ban diesel exports. Here the sourcing gets messy: CNN Business reported the ban runs through the end of January 2027, while OilPrice.com reported Russia "recently extended" the ban only through the end of September. Both can't be the exact end date at the same time, and neither source resolves the discrepancy. Moscow's export policy has shifted more than once and outside reporting hasn't fully caught up.

The Pump and the Farm

For drivers, AAA data cited by the Epoch Times showed regular gasoline at $4.08 a gallon nationally as of August 19, up 5 cents in a week, with diesel at $5.50, up 15 cents in a week. GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan attributed the diesel spike specifically to the Hormuz closure and Ukrainian refinery strikes, not gasoline demand.

The Philadelphia Inquirer put diesel even higher, at $5.62 a gallon, 53% above a year ago and closing in on the 2022 record of $5.82. Iowa farmer Randy Madden, who runs a 3,000-acre operation, told the paper he delayed buying diesel in May hoping for relief. Prices haven't moved. He now expects to spend more than $40,000 on fuel through the end of the year, roughly double his normal cost heading into harvest.

If refiners are "printing money," as Rapidan Energy Group's Bob McNally put it to CNN, why should consumers and farmers eat the bill? Marathon Petroleum and Valero shares have more than doubled this year; Phillips 66 is up almost 90%. Exxon is making $160 million a day. But the Goldman data suggests the margin isn't monopoly pricing. It's the market clearing a genuine capacity shortage that no single company created or controls. Refiners running at 97% of capacity, per the Energy Information Administration, aren't withholding supply. They're maxed out.

The open question is how long that lasts. Goldman's own timeline—no normal refinery utilization until the second half of 2027—means the diesel premium farmers and truckers are paying now isn't a blip. It's the forecast.