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Crack spread
Also known as: Crack
A crack spread is the difference in price between a refined product (or group of products) and crude oil.
It is used as a rough indicator of market conditions, roughly approximating the margin from processing light sweet crude through a cracking configuration refinery.
Typically, a crack is defined in terms of one specific product versus one specific crude. For example, the diesel crack on Brent. In this case, it is meant to indicate how much the price of the individual product is contributing to refining profitability.
Some more complicated cracks are used to provide a somewhat more accurate indicator of overall refining margin:
