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... A big part of the windfall didn't come from pumping oil. It came from turning it into fuel. Chevron's refining profits jumped more than 300%, from $1.1 billion to $4.9 billion.

At Exxon, the refining and fuels business carried the quarter, with adjusted earnings more than doubling from the second quarter while oil production earnings slipped on lower prices.

That gap explains why drivers haven't felt much relief, even though crude oil prices have eased from their spring highs.

"Nobody's filling their tanks with oil. It's got to be refined, and that's been the major kink this year," Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told Scripps News.

De Haan said global refining capacity has been squeezed on several fronts. China is refining less because it can't get as much oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and Ukrainian drone strikes have knocked Russian refineries offline. ...