From Brent to the pump — how a barrel of crude oil becomes a litre of petrol, and how fast prices follow
On 6 October 2026 a litre of crude came to 70 cents at the Brent spot price; a litre of EU petrol cost €2.01 on 5 October. The arithmetic of a barrel, the euro rate, and the speed of pass-through.
On 6 October 2026, the latest day in the EIA file, the Brent crude spot price (EIA) was $125.44 a barrel. At the ECB's reference rate of that day, 1.1269 dollars to the euro, that is €111.31 a barrel. A barrel holds 158.987 litres, so a litre of crude came to 70 cents. The European Commission's Weekly Oil Bulletin for Monday 5 October put the EU average pump price at €2.01 a litre for Euro-super 95 petrol and €2.15 for diesel. A year earlier, in the bulletin of 6 October 2025, petrol cost €1.62 and a litre of crude came to 36 cents.
This article does the arithmetic, sets out what sits between the crude and the pump, shows what the exchange rate does, and asks how fast pump prices follow: what the blog by ECB economists and published studies find, and what this site's weekly data show in single episodes. Refinery slates and crack spreads are in Why diesel costs more than petrol in Europe; excise and VAT by country are in What is in the price of a litre of fuel. The live figure is on the Brent oil price page.
The arithmetic of a barrel
The EIA's glossary defines a barrel of oil as "a unit of volume equal to 42 U.S. gallons", which is 158.987 litres: the NIST conversion table gives 1.589 873 × 10² litres.
The price used here is the EIA's daily "Europe Brent Spot Price FOB", in dollars per barrel. The EIA's definitions page describes Brent as "a blended crude stream produced in the North Sea region which serves as a reference or 'marker' for pricing a number of other crude streams" and names Refinitiv, an LSEG business, as the source. It is a spot price, not the price of a futures contract. From here on it is called the Brent spot price.
To get a price per litre, divide by the ECB's reference rate (US dollars per euro) and then by 158.987. The ECB usually updates the rates at around 16:00 CET on working days except TARGET closing days; on a day without a rate this article uses the latest earlier one. For Monday 5 October 2026, the date of the bulletin: $125.51 ÷ 1.1204 = €112.02 a barrel; €112.02 ÷ 158.987 = €0.705 a litre of crude.
| Date | Brent spot price ($ a barrel) | ECB rate ($ per €) | Brent spot price (€ a barrel) | Crude per litre (€) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 October 2025 | 67.09 | 1.1678 | 57.45 | 0.361 |
| 5 October 2026 | 125.51 | 1.1204 | 112.02 | 0.705 |
| 6 October 2026 (latest day in the EIA file) | 125.44 | 1.1269 | 111.31 | 0.700 |
Source: EIA; ECB reference rates; euroflation's calculation. 6 October 2025 and 5 October 2026 are the Mondays of the Commission bulletins used below.
At the 5 October 2026 rate every $10 on a barrel is 5.6 cents on a litre of crude:
| Brent spot price ($ a barrel) | Same in € at 1.1204 | Crude per litre (cents) |
|---|---|---|
| 60 | 53.55 | 33.7 |
| 80 | 71.40 | 44.9 |
| 100 | 89.25 | 56.1 |
| 120 | 107.10 | 67.4 |
A conversion grid at the 5 October 2026 rate, not observed prices. Source: euroflation's calculation.
What this figure is. It is a spot-price conversion: the price of a barrel of Brent on one day, in euros and per litre. It is not what any refinery paid, which depends on the grade, freight, the date of purchase and the contract terms; this arithmetic knows none of them. Nor does a litre of crude become a litre of petrol: in 2023 a 42-gallon barrel processed in US refineries gave about 19.57 gallons of finished motor gasoline, 12.47 of distillate fuel oil and smaller amounts of jet fuel and other products.
What sits between the crude and the pump
The July 2026 blog by ECB economists, who state that the views are theirs and not necessarily the ECB's, splits the pump price into five parts: crude oil, refining costs and margins, distribution costs and margins, excise duties and VAT. Refining costs and margins are "calculated as the difference between the contribution of refined product prices and the contribution of crude oil prices". Distribution costs and margins "cover all activities between refining and the final sale of the product".
For the EU average, the Commission's price without taxes minus the crude per litre leaves refining and distribution costs and margins together. The blog's Chart 3 notes describe the same step: "Refining and distribution costs and margins are calculated as the difference between pre-tax consumer prices and crude oil prices."
| EU average litre | Crude (spot conversion) | Rest before tax | Taxes (excise, levies, VAT) | Pump price | Crude as share of pump price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Petrol, 6 October 2025 | 0.361 | 0.340 | 0.919 | 1.620 | 22% |
| Petrol, 5 October 2026 | 0.705 | 0.371 | 0.931 | 2.006 | 35% |
| Diesel, 6 October 2025 | 0.361 | 0.388 | 0.789 | 1.538 | 23% |
| Diesel, 5 October 2026 | 0.705 | 0.620 | 0.824 | 2.149 | 33% |
Euro per litre. Source: Commission, Weekly Oil Bulletin, EU averages with and without taxes; Brent as in the first table; euroflation's calculation. Parts are rounded separately, so a row can differ from its sum by 0.001. The Commission marks its 2025 and 2026 EU averages as preliminary, because they use provisional consumption weights that may change.
Between the two dates the crude part of a litre rose by 34 cents. The part between crude and the tax rose by 3 cents for petrol and 23 cents for diesel; taxes rose by 1 cent and 4 cents. The pump price therefore rose by less than crude in percentage terms: crude by 95%, petrol by 24% and diesel by 40%. The blog explains that excise duties and VAT "make up a big, largely fixed share of the price", so a given percentage rise in crude oil prices "translates into a much smaller percentage move at the station". The tax split by country is in the fuel price article, the refining margins in the diesel article.
The blog says its crude oil component "has averaged around €0.47 per litre of diesel" since 2021, "ranging from €0.28 to €0.80", and reached €0.73 in the first week of April 2026. The conversion above, for the Monday of every Commission week from 11 January 2021 (the first Commission week of 2021 in the history file) to 20 July 2026, averages €0.47 and ranges from €0.28 to €0.77. The ECB does not state its conversion, so this is a comparison, not a replication. The EIA file shows a daily peak of $138.21 a barrel on 7 April 2026, or €0.752 a litre.
Euro and dollar
The EIA series is in dollars, so the euro price of a barrel can move differently from the dollar price. One plus the change in the euro price equals one plus the change in the dollar price, divided by one plus the change in the number of dollars per euro; a lower dollars-per-euro figure means a weaker euro.
| Period | Brent spot price in $ | $ per € | Brent spot price in € |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly mean of December 2004 to monthly mean of December 2005 | +43.5% | −11.5% | +62.1% |
| 3 July 2008 (dollar high) to 26 December 2008 (dollar low that followed) | −76.6% (143.95 to 33.73) | −11.8% (1.5885 to 1.4005) | −73.4% (90.62 to 24.08) |
| 19 June 2014 (2014 dollar high) to 20 January 2016 (dollar low) | −77.4% (115.19 to 26.01) | −19.9% (1.3620 to 1.0907) | −71.8% (84.57 to 23.85) |
| 31 December 2021 to 13 June 2022 (euro high) | +66.3% (77.24 to 128.44) | −7.7% (1.1326 to 1.0455) | +80.1% (68.20 to 122.85) |
Percentage change = end ÷ start − 1; the first row uses monthly means of daily values. Source: EIA, ECB; euroflation's calculation. The table does not say why the rate moved.
The first row can be checked against a primary source. The ECB's Monthly Bulletin of February 2006 said that the rise in crude oil and natural gas prices in 2005 was "magnified by the appreciation of the US dollar" and that "in euro terms, the price of Brent crude oil stood 62% higher in December 2005 than one year earlier". On the EIA and ECB files the monthly means give 62.1% in euros and 43.5% in dollars.
The highest prices in the file fall in different currencies. In dollars it is $143.95 on 3 July 2008 (€90.62 at 1.5885). In euros it is €122.85 on 13 June 2022 ($128.44 at 1.0455): the dollar price that day was 10.8% below the 2008 high, while the euro price was 35.6% above its value on 3 July 2008. From 6 October 2025 to 5 October 2026 the dollar price rose 87.1% and the euro price 95.0%, as the rate went from 1.1678 to 1.1204.
How fast pump prices follow: what the studies find
The blog by ECB economists, which the fuel price article also uses, says that in general pass-through is "fast, within one or two months, and complete", and that an increase of €0.10 per litre in crude oil prices "usually translates into an increase of €0.10 per litre in pre-tax pump prices". Behind that sit studies of euro-area data, which start from different prices: the blog from crude oil, Meyler from oil prices, Occasional Paper 113 from the refined product price at Rotterdam. "Rockets and feathers" is the name for the question whether pump prices rise faster than they fall. The table gives each source's setting and findings.
| Source | Setting | What it reports | Stated caveat or note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meyler, Energy Economics, 2009 (abstract read) | Euro area and its first 12 members, weekly data | "oil price pass through occurs quickly, with 90% occurring within three to five weeks"; "little evidence of statistically significant asymmetries" | Where asymmetry is significant it is "generally not economically significant"; weekly is "the lowest frequency one should consider" |
| ECB Occasional Paper 113, task force of the ESCB Monetary Policy Committee, 2010 (views not necessarily the ECB's) | Euro-area countries; weekly Oil Bulletin pre-tax petrol prices against refined product prices at Rotterdam, 1994 to 2008 | 50% passed through within two weeks, 90% within three to six weeks; of a 10 cent rise in the refined product price, petrol before tax rose 6.0 cents within two weeks and 9.3 within five | "little in the way of economically meaningful asymmetry" for the euro area as a whole; a few countries show significant but marginal asymmetry; Monday collection may understate the speed |
| ECB staff articles (restating OCP 113 and Meyler 2009, which their footnotes cite), 2018 and 2022 | Euro area and its countries | "almost complete within five weeks"; "generally complete and quick, usually within 3-5 weeks" | The 2022 article adds that, because taxes and margins do not move with crude, a 1% rise in crude oil prices raises the consumer price of liquid fuels by about 0.31-0.34% after one year (the blog makes the same point: complete in euro per litre before tax, smaller in percent) |
| Asane-Otoo and Dannemann, Oldenburg working paper, 2019 (abstract read; the ECB blog cites the published version) | Germany, daily prices at virtually all stations, 2014 to 2018 | "asymmetric pricing is the norm rather than exception" | Temporal aggregation of station data "might lead to inaccurate inferences and could account for the contradictory findings in the extant literature". The published version (The Energy Journal, 43(6), 2022) covers gasoline at 12,804 stations and says "the pattern of rockets and feathers is the norm rather than the exception" |
| Perdiguero-García, Energy Policy, 2013 (abstract read) | Meta-analysis of studies of price asymmetry (not limited to the euro area) | "the great variation in the outcomes reported makes the drawing of any definitive conclusions difficult" | Outcomes differ with the segment of the industry, the data, the years and the controls; "increased competition may significantly reduce the possibility of occurrence of asymmetric behavior" |
Quotations are from the sources linked. "Abstract read" means that only the abstract on the page linked was read; the ECB texts were read at the passages cited.
Where the evidence is strong, and where it is weak or mixed. On speed the euro-area sources give figures of the same order, the later ones restating the earlier: most of the pass-through within three to six weeks in the older studies and ECB articles, "within one or two months" in the 2026 blog. On direction they do not agree. Meyler and the ESCB task force paper, using weekly data, find little economically meaningful asymmetry for the euro area as a whole. The German station-level paper finds asymmetry to be the norm. The blog sums up that earlier euro-area studies found no asymmetry or were inconclusive, and that more recent work suggests pass-through could be slower on the way down. Results depend on the country, the period and the data frequency, and none of these sources settles whether euro-area pump prices fall more slowly than they rise.
Two classic studies, of other markets and from before the euro, found some asymmetry. Bacon's study of UK petrol, with fortnightly data from 1982 to 1990 (Oxford Institute for Energy Studies working paper, 1990; published in Energy Economics, 1991), puts the mean lag at 4.38 fortnights for a cost rise of 1 pence per litre and 4.77 for a fall, "about one week slower for the cost fall", a difference "not sufficiently great, at around one week, to lead to decisive rejection of the view that the UK retail gasoline market is highly competitive". In the 1992 working-paper version of their US study (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1997), Borenstein, Cameron and Gilbert report that "nearly all of the response to a crude oil price increase shows up in the pump price within 4 weeks, while decreases are passed along gradually over 8 weeks", and suggest inventory costs or market power as possible explanations.
How fast pump prices follow: what this site's data show
Next to the blog's "one or two months", here are single episodes from the files behind this site. They describe those weeks; they are not a test of the blog's finding, they establish no law, and they cannot see anything shorter than a week.
Method. The Commission's EU averages (Euro-super 95 and automotive gas oil) are dated Mondays and include the United Kingdom in the 2014–16 weeks. Brent is the EIA close on or before that Monday, in euros per litre as above. "Before tax" is the Commission's price without taxes. For each swing, the first Monday with the highest or lowest value in a window is taken, and the interval is counted from Brent.
| Episode | Brent (€ per litre) | EU petrol before tax | EU diesel before tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 high | 0.527 on 16 June 2014 | 0.689 on 7 July 2014 (3 weeks later) | 0.706 on 30 June 2014 (2 weeks later) |
| 2015–16 low | 0.158 on 18 January 2016 | 0.367 on 15 February 2016 (4 weeks) | 0.357 on 15 February 2016 (4 weeks) |
| 2022 first spike | 0.745 on 7 March 2022 | 1.071 on 14 March (1 week) | 1.211 on 14 March (1 week) |
| 2022 high | 0.773 on 13 June 2022 | 1.232 on 13 June (same week) | 1.299 on 27 June (2 weeks) |
| 2026 spring peak | 0.696 on 6 April 2026 † | 1.024 on 25 May (7 weeks) | 1.299 on 6 April (same week) |
| 2026 summer low | 0.383 on 6 July 2026 | 0.891 on 6 July (same week) | 0.962 on 6 July (same week) |
Euro per litre. Windows searched for each swing: 1 May to 29 September 2014; 28 September 2015 to 28 March 2016; 21 February to 18 April 2022; all of 2022; 2 March to 1 June 2026; 8 June to 3 August 2026. The episodes and windows were chosen after looking at the data, and wider windows change some intervals (a window of a year around the 2014 high puts the diesel maximum in January 2014). † 6 April 2026 was a holiday without an EIA price, so the close of 2 April ($127.61) is used. Source: EIA, ECB, European Commission; euroflation's calculation.
In 11 of the 12 comparisons the pre-tax price turned within four weeks of Brent in euros, which sits inside the blog's "one or two months". The exception is petrol in spring 2026, which kept rising for seven weeks after Brent turned, while diesel turned in the same week; the data do not say why, as the pre-tax price holds refining and distribution margins as well as crude. The result also depends on how the week is defined: with the mean of the seven days ending on Monday instead of the Monday close, the intervals move by up to three weeks, and in one episode (March 2022, both fuels) the pump price turns two weeks before Brent. Over all 594 changes between consecutive Commission weeks from January 2015 to October 2026 (15 of them over a skipped holiday week), the correlation between this week's change in Brent and the change in the EU pre-tax petrol price k weeks later is 0.36 at k = 0, 0.58 at k = 1, 0.16 at k = 2 and 0.12 at k = 3 (diesel 0.34, 0.58, 0.15, 0.10). A correlation shows co-movement, not how much of a change is passed on. The task force paper also cites a study finding that fewer price changes are made on Mondays, as the Rotterdam markets are closed over the weekend, so a Monday price carries little of the weekend's news.
For the 2026 swing the table sets the EU averages next to the ECB blog's statement that a €0.10 rise in crude "usually translates into an increase of €0.10 per litre in pre-tax pump prices".
| Monday | Brent (€ per litre) | EU petrol before tax | EU diesel before tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 February 2026 | 0.384 | 0.712 | 0.781 |
| 6 April 2026 | 0.696 | 0.997 | 1.299 |
| 6 July 2026 | 0.383 | 0.891 | 0.962 |
| Change, 23 February to 6 April | +0.313 | +0.285 | +0.518 |
| Change, 6 April to 6 July | −0.313 | −0.106 | −0.337 |
Euro per litre; Brent for 6 April is the close of 2 April. Source: EIA, ECB, European Commission; euroflation's calculation.
From 23 February to 6 April, petrol before tax rose by 28 cents and diesel by 52, against 31 for crude. From 6 April to 6 July, diesel before tax fell by 34 cents and petrol by 11, against 31 for crude. On 6 July Brent was at its 23 February level, while the pre-tax price was 18 cents higher for both fuels; the ECB blog reports near-record refining margins in the first three weeks of July. Margins moved as well as crude in these weeks, so the table cannot isolate crude, and it is one episode, not a test of the blog's finding or of the question about falling prices.
How to read the live numbers
- It is the EIA spot price. The Brent oil price page shows the EIA's Brent spot price, not the price of a futures contract.
- It is not up to the minute. The EIA's spot price table showed a release date of 7 October 2026 and a next release on 15 October 2026, so the newest value can be a week old or more. Compare it with the pump price of the same Monday.
- Dollars or euros. The euro value uses the ECB rate of the same day, or the latest earlier one. A weaker euro raises the euro price of a barrel without any change in the dollar price.
- Cents per litre. Divide the euro price of a barrel by 158.987; at the 5 October 2026 rate $10 on a barrel is 5.6 cents on a litre of crude.
- Crude is not the pump price. Refining, distribution, excise and VAT sit on top, and a barrel yields several products. Live pump prices are on the fuel prices page, the petrol ranking and the euro-area diesel page.
The short version
- A barrel is 158.987 litres. On 5 October 2026 the Brent spot price came to 70 cents a litre of crude, 35% of the €2.01 EU petrol litre; a year earlier 36 cents, 22% of €1.62. It is a conversion, not what a refinery paid.
- The euro price of a barrel is not the dollar price. From 31 December 2021 to 13 June 2022 it rose 80% in euros against 66% in dollars.
- The blog by ECB economists finds pass-through to the pre-tax pump price fast and complete, in general "within one or two months"; older euro-area studies put most of it at three to six weeks.
- Evidence on falling prices is mixed. Euro-area studies of aggregate data find little economically meaningful asymmetry; a German station-level study finds a rockets-and-feathers pattern. Results depend on country, period and data frequency.
- This site's weekly data are single episodes. In six selected swings since 2014 (12 comparisons, petrol and diesel), the EU pre-tax price peaked or bottomed within four weeks of Brent in euros 11 times and once after seven weeks; wider search windows change some of these.
Figures: EIA (Europe Brent spot price FOB, daily; definitions; refinery yields), ECB (euro foreign exchange reference rates; the blog "From well to pump: how fuel prices are formed", 31 July 2026; Monthly Bulletin 2/2006; Economic Bulletin 7/2018 and 4/2022; Occasional Paper 113), European Commission (Weekly Oil Bulletin to 5 October 2026), NIST (SP 811) and the studies linked in the text. euroflation is an independent tracker and is not affiliated with the EIA, the European Commission, the ECB or the EU. Nothing here is financial advice. Quotations are from the English originals.