[Dylan16807]

> How can you possibly say that crude is half of the pump price?

Look at gas prices in your area. Look at the price of crude. Divide.

How could you possibly not be able to estimate the fraction?

And yeah ideally you use an average number over some months and you sample the crude earlier than the gas but those are minor tweaks.

[Macha]

That's assuming the other costs (refining energy costs, transport, the company's gross margin) are uncorrelated to the price of crude oil, which seems unlikely

[Dylan16807]

A) Just calculating the percentage doesn't assume that.

B) They shouldn't correlate by a particularly large amount in a competitive environment. For an approximation as rough as "half" and assuming no other changes it's not a big deal.