If you look at the way that US commercial crude oil inventories have been declining for the past 4 months or so, it's clear that US refiners have been "betting" that the current surge in oil prices is a temporary spike that will reverse in the near term. If you do the comparison on a same-week basis, spot crude prices are 50% higher than the end of October last year, whilst product prices are 25-30% higher; however, if you bear in mind that the oil that is currently being refined is probably $75-80 oil that was purchased 2-6 weeks ago, then the price rises are actually fairly consistent.

FWIW, I doubt that crude prices will moderate significantly as inventories are likely to post further declines this week and next on the back of weather-related outages in Mexico - and that US gasoline prices are likely to rise some 30-40 cents in the none-too-distant future.

Given that US refiners had $25-30 crack spreads earlier in the year, they can easily absorb a period of $5 crack spreads if they believe that this will be a temporary - ie less than 90 day - phenomenon.