NEW YORK, Jan 22, 2026, 07:01 EST — Premarket
- NYMEX gasoline futures fell about 1.6% in early trade, tracking weaker crude.
- Industry data pointed to a sharp build in U.S. gasoline inventories ahead of government figures due later Thursday.
- Traders are also watching whether an Arctic blast disrupts refinery operations and crude production.
NYMEX February RBOB gasoline futures were down 1.6% at $1.8277 a gallon by 07:02 a.m. EST, after settling at $1.8574 on Wednesday.
The pullback tracked crude, which slipped after U.S. President Donald Trump softened threats over Greenland and Iran, easing geopolitical risk premia. Brent was down 1.6% at $64.17 a barrel and U.S. WTI down 1.7% at $59.60, while U.S. gasoline inventories rose by 6.21 million barrels last week, market sources said citing American Petroleum Institute figures. “There is a deflation of risk premium,” Ole Hansen, Saxo Bank’s chief commodity analyst, said, while IG’s Tony Sycamore said oil should hold at around $60 a barrel. Reuters
Fuel traders are also staring at an Arctic blast that could knock refinery units and crude production offline, just as the market tries to work out whether product stocks are getting heavy. The National Weather Service expects sub-zero lows to spread from the Northern Plains to the Northeast by Sunday and reach the Gulf Coast by early next week; a trading source estimated about 7 million barrels a day of crude production could be curtailed and Oklahoma refinery runs could fall by around 200,000 barrels per day. Diesel futures surged about 4% on Wednesday as natural gas spiked, and fuel distributor TACenergy said the cold “caught the market off guard.” Reuters
The next hard check on U.S. gasoline supply arrives later Thursday, with the Energy Information Administration’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report delayed by the federal holiday and scheduled for release at 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. ET.
At the pump, the EIA’s weekly survey pegged the U.S. retail regular gasoline average at $2.806 per gallon for the week of Jan. 19, up 2.7 cents from the previous week, while on-highway diesel averaged $3.530, up 7.1 cents.
AAA’s daily tracker showed the national average for regular gasoline at $2.850 on Thursday, up from $2.833 a day earlier and below $3.129 a year ago. The diesel national average was $3.545, AAA data showed.
RBOB — short for reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending — is the petroleum component used to make finished U.S. gasoline after blending with ethanol. Traders also watch the gasoline “crack spread,” the margin between crude and gasoline, as a rough gauge of refinery economics and how tight supply feels.
For now, the inventory story is doing most of the work. A build of the size signaled by the API — if confirmed — tends to lean on gasoline prices, especially in winter when demand typically shifts toward heating fuels.
But the picture is not clean. If the cold snaps harder than expected and refinery runs slip, local shortages can show up quickly even when national inventories look comfortable, and futures can whip back.
Traders’ next focus is the delayed EIA inventory report later on Thursday, along with any fresh notices from refiners as the cold front heads south toward the Gulf Coast in the days ahead.
