Consumers use gasoline for fuel in cars, light trucks and motorcycles as well as recreational vehicles, boats and small aircraft. Like any other commodity, natural gas is influenced by the forces of supply and demand. Ethanol needs to be mixed into gasoline at the local terminal racks, just before it’s delivered. The ethanol and gasoline are splash blended as the tanker truck fills before making the final trip to the gasoline station.

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Additionally, RBOB price changes lag a few days behind the price you pay at the gas station. So, keeping an eye on RBOB prices can give you a sense of where retail gas prices are headed. Futures contracts aren’t as popular among individual investors as stocks and bonds because they are generally harder to analyze and trade. Futures involve leverage, which can sink a whole account in days with relatively small moves. There isn’t an easy way to invest directly in RBOB gas with stocks or bonds, but you can invest in energy sector stocks and bonds affected by the same economic forces.

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For example, since many of the refineries for gasoline are located in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, weather issues in that area can drive up the price for RBOB. Another important factor to consider is that gasoline is heavily taxed in many jurisdictions. Crude oil is composed of a number of different hydrocarbons, or long chains of molecules. Longer chains make heavier hydrocarbons, as well as higher boiling points. From an investing perspective, RBOB gas is important because it’s the benchmark for gasoline futures.

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The margins on calendar spreads are lower because the two contracts have a high degree of correlation and generally move in the same direction. However, one contract might move more than the other due to market conditions. RBOB stands for Reformulated ganna basics Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending, a component that is used to create reformulated gasoline. Reformulated gasoline produces less smog than other gasoline blends.

Tools to customize searches, view specific data sets, study detailed documentation, and access time-series data. Now let’s look at the import volume for the CBOB for the rest of PADD 1 that does not require the reformulation. One of the earliest biotechnologies employed by man, the fermentation of sugar into ethanol, has been with us since prehistory. The alcohol in wine, beer, and that fine single-malt scotch is the same ethanol that is blended into our gasoline. The Clean Air Act of 1970 introduced a tidal wave of regulation to the automotive and oil industries (and many others).

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Reserves, production, prices, employment and productivity, distribution, stocks, imports and exports. The most prolific uses of RBOB gasoline is as fuel for various products such as cars, lawn mowers, generators, pressure washers, and many other common household appliances. But it also has other applications such as removing paint or grease, and is even used in numerous pesticides and weed killers see also Invest Like Jim Rogers With These Three Agriculture Stocks. At this point, the gasoline that comes out of the refinery is not a finished product.

Minimum contracts are equal to 42,000 gallons (1,000 barrels) and trade for the value per gallon. That means you need to multiply the quoted price by 42,000 to know what the contract cost will be. Crack spreads are a way to measure the margins for refining crude products and can serve to predict how tight the supply of products is in different markets. A crack spread is the difference between the wholesale price of a refined petroleum product such as gasoline and the price of crude oil.

Refining this essential fuel can be done in a variety of ways, with the most popular being forms of “cracking”. Cracking is a process whereby hydrocarbon molecules are broken up by heat and pressure into lighter molecules. There are various forms of this process, including thermal cracking (the most popular) and catalytic cracking.

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Internal combustion engines, like those found in automobiles, burn fuel in controlled processes. The higher the octane rating, the higher the compression rate, with a more efficient fuel capable of a higher output than those with a lower octane rating. This is the reason why some cars accept only certain kinds of fuel, and why there are price discrepancies among various gas options at the pump see also Three Mining Companies With Robust Yields.

Other production/refining methods include polymerization, alkylation, and isomerization. Reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending (RBOB) is a grade of gasoline used in U.S. futures contracts traded on commodity exchanges as a way to speculate on the price of oil. Gasoline itself was not invented, but rather was discovered as a by-product of the production of kerosene and the refining of crude oil. It was thrust into popularity with the introduction of automobiles, which had the option of using various fuel sources, but ultimately settled upon gasoline for its strong combustion properties. Since then, numerous developments have improved the quality of gasoline as it is refined from crude oil all over the world. Gasoline can be a particularly nasty thorn in a consumer’s side; prices at the pump can wildly fluctuate due to the dramatic price swings of crude over small periods of time.

Oil refineries separate out the different chains by heating the crude oil to different vaporization points, and then distilling the resulting vapors. Gasoline is a oanda broker mixture of those hydrocarbon chains with boiling points below that of water. These different chains are blended together in various proportions to provide a consistent product for motor fuel. Turmoil in important oil-producing countries can create spikes in gasoline prices.

• Click the «+» icon in the first column (on the left) to view more data for the selected symbol.
• Consumers use gasoline for fuel in cars, light trucks and motorcycles as well as recreational vehicles, boats and small aircraft.
• End-of-Day prices are updated at 8pm CST each evening, and includes the previous session volume and open interest information.
• Another important factor to consider is that gasoline is heavily taxed in many jurisdictions.
• Each fraction has molecule chains of different lengths, and each of these chains has a different boiling point.

You can use the CME Group website or the Nasdaq website to find the current price of a gallon of RBOB gas. RBOB gas is a grade of gasoline commonly used in the United Top 10 commodities States. It is common because it is considered better for the environment and is required in some areas. Start your research with reviews of these regulated brokers available in . Seasonal patterns also emerge as a result of formulation requirements for gasoline.