Crack spread! (/w pics) (sfw?)

[garcia1000]

3-2-1 crack spread!

Pictures for you guys!!




The word "spread" is generally used in the financial industry to refer to the difference between two related entities that can be expressed quantitatively while the word "crack" is used in the oil refining industry as a verb describing the process of separating and transforming the various chemical components of crude oil into saleable refined products. Thus the term "crack spread" refers to the spread, or margin, that a refinery can earn by cracking a barrel of oil into refined products.

For simplicity, most refiners wishing to hedge their price exposures have used a crack ratio usually expressed as X:Y:Z where X represents a number of barrels of crude oil, Y represents a number of barrels of gasoline and Z represents a number of barrels of distillate fuel oil, subject to the constraint that X=Y+Z. This crack ratio is used for hedging purposes by buying X barrels of crude oil and selling Y barrels of gasoline and Z barrels of distillate in the futures market. The crack spread X:Y:Z reflects the spread obtaining by trading oil, gasoline and distillate according to this ratio. Widely used crack spreads have included 3:2:1, 5:3:2 and 2:1:1.[1] As the 3:2:1 crack spread is the most popular of these, widely quoted crack spread benchmarks are the "Gulf Coast 3:2:1" and the "Chicago 3:2:1".