A post by @NickTimiraos on X.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said falling crude prices will not quickly translate into relief for consumers because refining capacity remains badly constrained, pointing to diesel as the clearest example. During Q&A, an interlocutor noted Brent had dropped from about $118 a barrel a couple of weeks earlier to roughly $90 that morning, and asked how the committee weighs such moves against backward-looking core CPI data. Waller argued that more crude flowing from the Gulf does not guarantee cheaper energy products, since damaged refining infrastructure worldwide limits how much oil can be processed into diesel. He said diesel prices are "not coming back down anytime soon" and cautioned against reading a single barrel price as a proxy for consumer energy costs. The exchange matters because it signals the Fed is focused on refined-product bottlenecks rather than headline crude when assessing near-term inflation pressure. What to watch next is diesel and refining margins, and whether the gap between crude and refined product prices narrows as capacity is restored.