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Guest Post: Why Is Gasoline Consumption Tanking?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Why Is Gasoline Consumption Tanking?
Gasoline deliveries reflect recession and growth. The recent drop in retail gasoline deliveries is signalling a sharp contraction ahead.
Mish recently posted some intriguing charts depicting a significant decline in gasoline consumption. Then correspondent Joe R. forwarded me this stunning chart of gasoline retail deliveries, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration: (EIA)
As Joe noted, this data is interesting because it is un-manipulated, that is, it is not "seasonally adjusted" or run through some black-box modifications like so much other government data.
Retail gasoline deliveries, already well below 1980 levels, have absolutely fallen off a cliff. Is the plunge inventory-related, i.e. are storage facilities so full that retailers are simply putting off deliveries?
Though I don't have data on hand to support this, I know from one of my correspondents who is in the gasoline distribution/delivery business that gasoline is very much a "just in time" commodity: gas stations are often close to running out of fuel when they get a delivery. Stations aren't holding huge quantities of surplus gasoline; that's not how the business works.
Given the absence of "extra storage" in gas stations (and the fact that the number of gas stations has fallen dramatically since 1980), it is reasonable to conclude that retail delivery is largely a function of demand, i.e. gasoline consumption.
Even if you dismiss the recent plunge as an outlier, the declines in retail gasoline deliveries are mind-boggling. If you look at the data from 1983 to 2011 on the link above, you will note that delivery declines align with recessions.
For example, deliveries jumped from 50.1 million gallons per day (MGD) in November 1983, when the nation was emerging from the deepest postwar recession then on record, to 58 MGD the following November (1984).
Deliveries steadily rose to a peak of 67.1 MGD in July 1998, declined marginally in the 2001-2 recession and then surged to 66.8 MGD in August 2003. If we just look at one month--say November--then we see that deliveries remained in a remarkably consistent channel from 1994 to 2008, between 54 MGD and 63 MGD, with the higher numbers occuring in the "peak bubble years" of 1998 and 2003.
In 2010, gasoline deliveries declined to the low 40s--literally falling off the charts. In November 1983, deliveries were 51.1 MGD; in November 2010, they were 42.8 MGD, and in November 2011 they were 30.9 MGD.
Does this reflect higher fuel efficiencies in the U.S. vehicle fleet? To examine fuel efficiency and other macro-trends, I assembled some charts of fuel efficiency (courtesy of the Early Warning blog) and a graph of employment, a commonly used proxy for economic activity/growth.
Let's start with some basic data about population and vehicles. There are 254 million passenger vehicles registered in the U.S. Some percentage of these are classic cars and other vehicles that aren't driven much, but nonetheless the number of vehicles that are in regular use is large.
U.S. population in 1983 was approximately 234 million. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the current population at 313 million.
Vehicle sales declined from a record 17.4 million in 2000 to 11.5 million in 2010.
People are driving less: The Road... Less Traveled: An Analysis of Vehicle Miles Traveled Trends in the U.S.. (2008)
Driving, as measured by national Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), began to plateau as far back as 2004 and dropped in 2007 for the first time since 1980. Per capita driving followed a similar pattern, with flat-lining growth after 2000 and falling rates since 2005. These recent declines in driving predated the steady hikes in gas prices during 2007 and 2008. Moreover, the recent drops in VMT (90 billion miles) and VMT per capita (388 miles) are the largest annualized drops since World War II.
Here are two charts of U.S. employment which show two periods of strong expansion: in the late 1990s and in 2002-08.
If the number of jobs were correlated to gasoline deliveries, then we would expect deliveries to be close to those registered in 2003 and 1999, since the number of jobs has declined to the levels of those years.
Instead, we find deliveries are dramatically lower:
November 1999: 59 MGD
November 2003: 63.8 MGD
November 2010: 42.8 MGD
Once again, this is not an outlier: deliveries for all of 2010 were between 42 and 46 MGD, compared to deliveries in the high 50s/mid 60s in 1999 and 2003.
There are all kinds of other things that influence the number of miles driven, but there is little evidence that any one factor can account for a 47% drop in retail gasoline deliveries. For example, it is well-known that the U.S. economy has shifted to a digital, service economy in the past 30 years, and since more people can "consume" (via shopping at amazon.com, etc.) and "produce" (work from home) without driving, then it makes sense that people are driving less.
But if we examine the data, it's difficult to attribute the massive recent drops to people ordering stuff online or working from home more. After all, people were working from home and ordering stuff online in 2003, when gas deliveries reached 63 MGD, and in November 2006, when deliveries were 58.8 MGD.
Deliveries in November 2011 were 30.9 MGD, a staggering 47% decline.
What about fuel efficiency? here are two charts from the Early Warning blog. They show a significant increase in the 1980s, but only modest improvement through the 1990s and 2000s.
If we use the same year as in the employment analysis, 1999, we see there was a 6% rise in efficiency from 1999 to 2010. This would suggest 6% of the decline in gasoline deliveries can be attributed to increased efficiency. But what about the other 40% of the decline? That cannot be attributed to higher efficiency.
I've marked up the first chart to show the secular trends in efficiency and employment.
There are no data-supported broad-based drivers for dramatically lower gasoline consumption other than austerity and lower economic activity. The code-word for "austerity and lower economic activity" that is verboten in the Mainstream Media is "recession." Indeed, if you examine the EIA data, the only causal factor that has backing in the data is recession--or if you prefer, austerity and lower economic activity.
Then there is the price of fuel. People have to go to work, pick up the kids, get their meds, etc., and few urban centers in the U.S. have mass transit systems that are up to the task of replacing autos. So most Americans have what we might call non-discretionary driving. But as the price of fuel rises, people find ways to lower their discretionary driving by combining trips, shopping less often, shortening or eliminating vacations, etc. Enterprises reduce costly business travel with teleconferences and other digital technologies.
Data supports the notion that high oil prices lead to recession. For example, Chris Martenson recently made a compelling case for this in Why Our Currency Will Fail ("Note that all of the six prior recessions were preceded by a spike in oil prices.")
Household income doesn't rise just because oil is climbing in cost, and so the extra money spent on fuel is diverted from other consumption or saving (capital accumulation). Higher fuel costs lower household capital formation and reduce consumption/economic activity.
Oil has been elevated for months, kissing $100 and rarely dipping below $90/barrel. Do higher oil costs explain the decline in gasoline consumption? Once again, they undoubtedly influence consumption, but that cannot explain the 40% drop in consumption. After all, when oil spiked in 2008 to $140/barrel, deliveries only dropped by a few million gallons: from 58.8 MGD in July 2007, before the spike, to 54.8 MGD at the point of maximum pain in July 2008.
The cost of oil has declined sharply from mid-2008, yet consumption has tanked from 54.8 MGD in July 2008 to 42.4 MGD in July 2011. That's a hefty 21% decline.
What other plausible explanation is there for the decline from 42.4 MGD in July 2011 to 30.9 MGD in November 2011 other than a dramatic decline in discretionary driving? That 27% drop in a few months in unprecedented, except in times of war or sharp economic contraction, i.e. recession.
If we stipulate that vehicles and fuel consumption are essential proxies for the U.S. economy, then we can expect a steep decline in economic activity to register in other metrics within the next few months.
Such a sharp drop would of course be "unexpected" given the positive employment data of the past few months. But as the data above shows, employment isn't tightly correlated to gasoline consumption: gasoline consumption reflects recession and growth.
In other words, look out below.
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It could be a decline in household driving for certain. I also think less deliveries by commercial vehicles has contributed as well.
I've been working on a piece regarding the rises in WTI and Brent and the continued rise of pump gasoline even thouigh demand has fallen and supply's have risen.
Oil and the Socially Constructed DollarA growing trend I have noticed recently is an increasingly expressed anxiety over financial concerns, usually conjoined with an apparently passive acceptance of what might be called the “dollarization” of education generally. I find this latter attitude puzzling. Yes, some may liken their role to that of a court jester, or perhaps the king’s lapdog, wherein they are free to pursue whatever trivial intellectual pursuit tickles their fancy, as long as they don’t rock the boat or bite the hand that feeds them, at least not where that “feed” is counted out in dollars and cents. Another conception of the role of an academic, however, the one I happen to hold, maintains that, in exchange for the time and support to inquire deeply into a particular topic, one so privileged has a responsibility to serve as a kind of neuron in the collective brain of the species, monitoring our human trajectory and feeding back into the population at large messages regarding adjustments in our course that are necessary for long-term survival. Currently, it seems that few such messages are being generated, and even fewer received, leaving our global society virtually rudderless, or, at best, at the mercy of individuals who are largely ignorant about the workings of complex systems that their decision-making affects.
Let’s face it, we were the ones who stayed up nights, studying our disciplinary tomes, while less motivated students left the institutions of higher learning to pursue careers in business and politics. Some of them rose within power hierarchies in proportion to their relative success at playing a certain kind of game. It is a game played with symbols, carried out by means of speech acts--a very elaborate sort of language game, as philosopher John Searle explains to us in The Construction of Social Reality (1995) and his more recent Making the Social World (2010)—but a game nonetheless, a human construction, and one that often bears little relationship to the way that biological life actually functions on the planet.
Many of us in academia understand what the phrase “socially constructed” means, at least in a broad-brushstroke kind of way. It has been used in some circles to raise questions about how seriously we should take the theories formulated by scientists, since all of human knowledge, including that flowing from the sciences, is ultimately a human construction. Strangely enough, however--perhaps because it is so obvious?—few of us, within or outside of academia, ever dare to address the socially constructed nature of the entire global financial system, or the fact that it, and the social hierarchies that are based upon it, are maintained only by our continued collective acceptance. Joe Sixpack may not have realized this yet—he has to get up every morning and go off to work, and doesn’t have much time to engage in armchair reflection. But what’s our excuse?
Searle makes a distinction of great import when he lays out the contrast between what he calls the ontologically objective—the real entities and processes that exist whether or not we humans believe in them, speak about them, or otherwise “represent” them to ourselves, things like our bodies and those of other living organisms, and the ecosystems that we all inhabit—and the ontologically subjective, a category which encompasses all the beliefs and desires and expectations that we reinforce in each other as we communicate on a daily basis, including such “things” as dollar bills, property values and nation-states. As Nietzsche observed over a century ago, we have a tendency to reify whatever our language denotes with nouns, without regard for the ontological status of the kind of “thing” that we can so name, and this seems to be particularly the case with respect to that completely abstract entity, money. When we confuse the ontologically subjective with the ontologically objective, we are making a serious category mistake. But that’s exactly what we’re doing when we try to reassure ourselves that, for example, BP can “make us whole again” by shelling out a certain number of dollars in restitution for what happened in the Gulf. No, it can’t. Money is nothing but a symbol. Human beings can exchange such symbols for things that have real value in the ontologically objective world, like food and water, as long as everybody else plays along and invests those symbols with meaning. But try offering a dollar bill to an oil-encrusted pelican. Better yet, see how many it will take to wipe him clean.
I’m not suggesting that recognizing the socially constructed status of money will immediately correct some of the more egregious effects of the games we play using such a symbol as our “ball”—a large percentage of the human population is now being fed by institutions organized around keeping it in play, and reducing that dependency will take time and effort. But introducing a little more reflexivity into our self-image can only be salutary, and might enable us to engage our native flexibility just in time to avoid ecocide. It used to be the case, I suspect, not even all that long ago, that human beings made decisions about what to do based on what sorts of things needed to be done—the corn needed to be planted, the cow milked, the neighbor’s barn rebuilt after the fire. Somewhere along the way we clever primates came up with the idea of using a common medium of exchange so we no longer needed to trade chickens directly for cabbages or carriages, or, to take a more politically relevant example, for our health care. The step from basing actions on real-world needs to doing things just so the “bottom line”—an ontologically subjective entity if there ever was one—can be “maximized” was quite a large one, and, I submit, a fairly recent one in our long evolutionary history.
We’re no longer faced with a problem of not seeing the forest for the trees—now we see neither trees nor forests but at most so many board-feet of lumber, and usually bypass even that much concreteness to float weightlessly above it all in a Platonic realm of numbers. If you have studied even the most elementary biology, you know that green plants are the primary producers on this planet, trapping the energy of the sun in usable form by carrying out photosynthesis, a performance for which we should all be grateful. But have you ever asked yourself what, exactly, is being created by carrying out the mathematical operation of calculating compound interest? Two different categories, my friend.
I happen to think we humans can come to our senses and start living in the real world again. And I think academics could play an important role in the waking-up of our species, since academics are, by and large, able to understand the processes that led us into this mess in the first place. While it may be difficult, it is not impossible to get out the message that our current dollar-worship is not at all “part of the natural order of things,” but rather a social construction, and like all human social constructions, open to re-construction or even transformation into a radically different way of living. But first we have to find the courage to wake up ourselves.
Eyestrain.
Psychic enegy transferred at will without words, or labels; it would allow us to see thoughts as animals do, not messed up by semantics. Thoughts would be pictures and the transfer vibration would set the tone for additional meaning without words, It happens but we have lost much of our ability to interpret things correctly, and read thoughts.
I'd be interested to read the content, but presentation is a fail. Plus you didn't cite your source.
You're an ass.
Any correlation to the fact that there are now shopping centers within every 15 mile radius (at least) in even rural areas?? I used to drive 45 minutes to get to any reasonable shopping area, now from the same spot i can drive about 10 for the same stuff.
not inless they built them all in two months ;)
Ha ha ha, Brilliant! ;O)
dp
I'll concede the last huge drop, but those may be outliers and I'm speaking more to the overall trends down here, coincides with over building in retail markets.
could be - I think it has to do with inventories being stuffed in general; the gom'nt talks up a bad economy, throws around a few fudged numbers, and business stock up their inventories. Then, when none of their inventories sell, they stop ordering and trucks stop rolling.
Guys...these are refinery deliveries.
There's another source of retail gas -- imports. Great big tankers of gasoline from the Caribbean or Europe that park at your local dock and empty out into the pretty tank farm.
That's what drove those two refineries out of business.
The trend is still down but the order of magnitude is way off.
After further review of the EIA data, I call garbage altogether.
This is the real graph to look at:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=wgfupus2&f=w
This includes imports and is the total gasoline produced or delivered to the US. It's down 5% in the past few weeks, not 25% as the graphic shown in the post.
Nice cherry pick.
5% in a few weeks is still a train-wreck; equivilent of one in every twenty cars disappearing from the road in two weeks.
I love it when people source some data to their claim!
I would believe that substitution to rail, increased nat gas consumption by trucking, grabage fleets, Warren Buffet's "little" rail company would also play a small role.
No matter how much B/S you want to call on the article, the fact remains that high gasoline prices are negatively impacting the economy. High prices plus low volumes may be an indicator of slowing economic growth.
I love it when people source some data to their claim!
I would believe that substitution to rail, increased nat gas consumption by trucking, grabage fleets, Warren Buffet's "little" rail company would also play a small role.
No matter how much B/S you want to call on the article, the fact remains that high gasoline prices are negatively impacting the economy. High prices plus low volumes may be an indicator of slowing economic growth.
When you consider that the U.S. military is the single greatest consumer of gasoline, and in spite of the so-called withdrawal from Iraq I don't see them decreasing their consumption, then the U.S. public is probably imposing self-austerity with a vengeance.
Not gasoline. The U.S. military has converted most of its fossil fueled equipment to distillate, another reason for diesel to be more in demand and more expensive than gasoline.
Diesel used to be in excess due to gasoline demand 50 years ago. Now it's gasoline that's in excess due to diesel demand.
Perhaps .mil is "filling er up" for their next bold adventure!
Have a look at this chart...our refineries are busy. We are shipping it overseas.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MGFEXUS1&f=M
C3X portfolio
http://capital3x.com/trades/performance-week-feb-10-from-red-to-black-536-pips/
Could it be we have been in a recession since 2008 and the government has been lying to us about growth? Of course not. Our government would never lie to us.
Not discussed is blending of corn based ethanol into the gasoline supply, which has gone up a lot since 2005. Not clear if the retail gasoline delivery data includes ethanol?
Ethanol production has the net effect of converting scarce diesel to excessively plentiful gasoline. This is directly opposite what is desired.
Lucky for me I work out of my house now (almost completely location independent now ... cool)
That was about over $250 per month saved in gas expenses here.
This comment is " ShOckIng! I want a Fleet of Bailed out VoLTs? Heavy SARC!
Because you can't eat it?
On Friday evening around 6pm December 23, 2011 I was at a coffee shop with some friends and mentioned that I had to travel on the 405 in LA. Everyone made comments about how bad the traffic, that I was about to face, would be.
I was suprised to find out as I made my journey that there was no traffic and I maintained a little better than the speed limit the whole way.
Maybe some people figured out how to rehypothocate their gas so it lasts longer
You should keep an eye out for that ;-) We could all get in on that ... er ... opportunity. - Ned
CHEVY VOLT?
CHEVY VOLT?
Re Why is gasoline consumption tanking?
Hmmm... maybe because - in the interests of being eco-friendly - I've replaced this mode of transportation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gz9u-yw8Zw
with this?
http://media.photobucket.com/image/man+on+a+tricycle+/caedyl/Scavenger-98.jpg
A chart with 2 lines makes a ( Short curcuiT)
"Yes Mr President, we'll get on this, right away!" - BLS
Fortune Cookie... "China man drive car past American on Bike on way to College" 2014
Blobbing.
OK we have 4 charts. I say we backfill and let M/E wash $'s into London every night! Crude @ 100bbl?
I have the answer. All the unemployed people that LOWERED the unemployment rate are consuming more gasoline, but they are drinking it instead in a massive Jonsenian style suicide protest because they can't take the bullshit anymore. Many part time and full time workersw will be joining them soon.
There is, unfortunately, a grain of truth in that.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=17395
I don't understand why people commit suicide. If you're that desperate go on a murderous rampage instead. Take a few of the bastards with you.
Tom Kloza gasoline analyst "THE MYSTERY OF THE DISAPPEARING U.S. GAS DEMAND "
http://blogs.opisnet.com/archive/2012/01/16/the-mystery-of-the-disappearing-u-s-gas-demand.aspx
"1. Heavier cocooning. Let me abandon the behavioral psychology and business-speak for a moment. I maintain that we have seen at least twelve years of blaring drumbeats from media, business leaders, and even politicians. The message? From Black Friday through New Years Day, go out and spend lots of money that you don’t have on crap that you do not need.
The bills come due in January. This translates into a tightly wound cocoon that makes Mothra look stark naked."
We're Fucked. Time to rob an armored car and head for Switzerland.
No, wait. I might get caught and go to prison.
I'll start a company, let's see, MF something or other and then rip off all the rubes who invest. If I give 20% to Obamastein, I'll get an Air Force charter to the alps and some of his dope stash.
RU effing kidding? Have (you) been paying attention to the "SWISS"? FIAT MAXIMUS! I'm currently holding 5 positions!
Sorry, I've seen too many WW2 movies. That's where they always go to escape NAZIs.
I was thinking about the Neutrality issue, not fiat. I am sure there is plenty of game to hunt. Once that's gone, we can eat everyone at Davos.
People have to go to work, pick up the kids, get their meds, etc.
Exept for the childless day-trader growing his own?
Viva La Revolution!
But why is the price of gas NOT tanking? Hint - it kinda rhymes the Mr. Hanky.
47%? ... this could just be a Toyota Prius side-effect.
/sarc
JW inFL that was a long thread. rest assured I will read every bit of it.
Personal consumption is also increase slightly by people's driving habits, such as getting that cool little MPH scale thingy to register as high a number as possible; and driving under the speed limit to miss the attention of greedy patrol cars searching for city revenue.
This shit is getting OLD Crack This.
It's the economy stupid. More ppl working at home, fewer ppl working at all, gas going back to $4/gallon...
So you've done a nice little study on gas consumption, try this: Do a study on the average car pppl are buying now.
Look at the car ads in the paper. Remember when it used to say $300-400 per month car payments? Now it's around $200...or less.
That's a telltale sign...people are BROKE.
Chevy now has $150/month leases!!
Welcome to the globalized economy where Americans make the same wages as CHinese. We're just getting there, the Chinese pay $5000 for a new car.
POOR AND BROKE IN AMERICA. It's only a matter of time before the Foxconn factories are being built in the heartland USA.
Thu, 01/19/2012 - 15:12 | 2079025 BORT
Vote up!
7Vote down!
0Petroleum Product usage is now at levels last seen in 1997(4 week moving average based on EIA data). We are below the 2009 low point. It is crashing out there in the real world
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=wrpupus2&f=4
From:http://news.gnom.es/public-policy/federal-retirements-spike-in-2011
Federal retirements increased 24 percent in 2011 from the previous year, according to new statistics from the Office of Personnel Management.
OPM received 104,810 retirement applications in 2011 compared to 84,427 in 2010. The wave of buyouts and early retirement packages during the latter part of 2011 likely contributed to the uptick in departures. Applications surged in January, July and October 2011, in particular.
In January 2012, OPM received 21,479 retirement applications, 9 percent more than in January 2011.
The appeal of buyouts and early outs to agencies grew after the failure of the joint select committee on deficit reduction to agree on a plan to reduce spending by $1.2 trillion triggered across-the-board automatic spending cuts. Those cuts are slated to take effect in January 2013 unless Congress repeals sequestration. While there are no official figures available yet on how many employees accepted such incentives in 2011, tens of thousands were offered, and agencies en masse are likely to offer another round of buyouts heading into fiscal 2013.
The last time the government relied heavily on buyouts and early outs to reshape the federal workforce was during the 1990s as part of the Clinton administration’s reinventing government initiative. The difference between then and now, however, is that agencies’ use of the incentive in the 1990s was not budget-driven, but part of an overall initiative aimed at making government more efficient and streamlined.
While the increase in retirements could be good news for agencies struggling with budget cuts, the spike in applications also will have an effect on the troubled retirement claims process. There is a backlog of roughly 62,000 retirement claims and Congress is putting pressure on OPM to improve the system and get annuity checks to federal retirees more quickly. A trio of Washington-area lawmakers sent Office of Management and Budget acting Director Jeff Zients a Feb. 6 letter expressing frustration over the matter and asking OPM to work closely with OMB to resolve the delays. It takes an average of 156 days to complete a claim, but many retirees wait a year or more for their payments. Virginia and Maryland are home to more than 250,000 federal retirees.
Across Wisconsin this year, teachers have opted to retire at higher rates than usual, partly in response to the new law. Under the law, teachers have to contribute a considerable chunk of their salaries to health and retirement plans, and districts can decide to lengthen the school day or year without increasing salaries.
That sharp of a decline from the trend to the last 2 months look more like somebody forgot to turn in their homework.
I think it is declining. Just not such a drastic drop in one month.
You like those "i-devices" eh? hmmm...they make your life easier do they? all those "apps"
Question: in Europe Diesel is a big factor with >50% new registrations in Germany being Diesel, and trucks using Diesel. Do US truckers run with Diesel or Petrol engines ? How far are these figures affected by lower freight haulage and not simply car drivers ?.
They nearly all use diesel engines, Cummins probably the most popular.
No snow, no plowing, snowblowers, wasted gas
The Chinese and Indians use oil to get to work and back.
The Americans use oil to drive heavy, oversized pickups and SUVs nowhere in particular.
Which means we'll continue to be outbid for oil.
Peak oil's a bitch, isn't she?
Another metric I have been looking at is total energy consumption. There was a noticable decline in 2009, then rebound in 2010... and... ya check this out.
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/mer.pdf
Total Energy Consumption (Fossil, Nuclear, Renewable)
2006 - 99.639
2007 - 101.32
2008 - 99.278
2009 - 94.54
2010 - 97.729
2011 - 81.13 (OOPS --> January to October)
2011's November + December isn't out yet!
SORRYYYYYY My booboo!!!
Quick update - 2011's is only Jan to October.
The 10 month data shows a slow increase:
2009 - 78.167
2010 - 80.691
2011 - 81.139
However, the increase from 2010 has been very slight.
Glad you wrote this Dan. I have wondered for some time what is happening with gasoline usage here in NY. The vendors I know personally are down on volume last two years. As a channel rat, I am constantly asking vendors for anecdotals. I live next to 9A in Croton, so there is a lot of volume through the half dozen gas vendors we have in town. Smaller cars, bad economy equates to lower usage. Hopefully some sleepless nights to oil exporters.
Glad you wrote this Dan. I have wondered for some time what is happening with gasoline usage here in NY. The vendors I know personally are down on volume last two years. As a channel rat, I am constantly asking vendors for anecdotals. I live next to 9A in Croton, so there is a lot of volume through the half dozen gas vendors we have in town. Smaller cars, bad economy equates to lower usage. Hopefully some sleepless nights to oil exporters.
Oil 101, find it for a low price, sell it for a high price.
Contango baby!!!
www.mogulsandmushrooms.blogspot.com
Don't let these numbers fool you too much, while it is true we have consumed less, we are also IMPORTING more refined fuels so those don't appear on this graph. The author should have included the rise in imports. Refiners make more money exporting US refined products then selling them here.
We don't give a fuuuuck if the roofs on fiire...
We don't need no petro let the motherfucker burn
Obviously cash for clunkers was roaring success!
Dropping Gasoline consumption, another sign of the depression we are in
USA wakes up to the gas supply/price noose. About time. First world needs to review big time its Oil dependent transport and industrial segments. As Chindia will guzzle more and more.
If the Iran situation and Iraq situation evolve Eastwards as the trend firms out, Euro recession will be fueled by a losing fight for oil products; all new refineries are now being built in these new markets, a sign of the times. What can a fiat euro buy that a Yuan can't? That's the bitch of a receding production/consumption horizon on the way the world cake splits. Loss of buying power. Unless you build fast an alternative energy paradigm...Hmmmm!!!
John Foster Dulles coined a phrase to show his determination to hotten the ideological race bottling up third world neutrality in 1955 : Roll back!! (We know how that worked in ME and Nam, but it became the mother of petrodollar hegemony).
Now the BRICS will play their own game for energy cake in name of : New Roll back!
First world doldrums and BRIC world growth drums, which way roll the oil drums...?
Ask the charts!
I'd say this is one of many elements of the ECRI's recession call. I'm staying short.
What I find even more worrying, is that in 2008 during the summer, gasoline prices spiked and was one of the major triggers of the current recession. Now, if gasoline prices are supposed to rise again by $0.60 by May, that will trigger another economic recession. If you look back at the past 40 or so years, every single recession has been caused by a spike in gasoline prices...doesn't anyone else notice anything here?
What's especially worrysome is Obama's "energy plan" that seems to predicate vastly higher energy prices...part of that is now in place by diverting Canadian oils sands to China...and forbidding drlling in the GUlf of Mexico, while giving money to Soro's owned Brazilian petrolium company...
Just something to think about.
Haven't you heard?? Both sides are the same, the Repub's would have allowed the pipeline but burned down the refineries cuz IUD's are produced from the plastic. R's would have given billions to Buffett, oh wait scratch that, billions to somebody for oil drilling in Israel, then they would have bombed Lichtenstein..
All this demand reduction, and zero price adjustments mean that its manipulated fucking bullshit and absolutely nothing can be interpreted except fraud modeling.
Is goldman fags still stockpiling tankers full of crude?
The oil complex is all manipulated just like the money complex. Wake me when big oil is dead.
All markets are a complete joke this is yet another symptom covered up with fraud.
Well Rip van Winkle slept for twenty; you might make it to thirty. Exxon is a big mammoth to shoot down. Need dumdum solar bullets and windmills by the thousands, where's Don Q to help?
Comments that this does not reflect gasoline imports are correct.
Here are the EIA's monthly gasoline stats, up to Nov11.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mgfupus2&f=m
However, even from this you can see a dropoff. Nov11 was the lowest gasoline consumption in any November since 2000. When you consider that population has been growing at roughly 1% per year since then, it becomes even more significant. 2011 gasoline consumption was in line with same-month 2010 until Apr11, then it falls off quite a bit compared to 2010. The EIA says 8,527mbbl motor gasoline per day in Nov11, compared with 8,816 in Nov10. So, the basic observation is on I think. I expect bigger declines in Dec11 and Jan12.
When will people learn that the price of oil is "price fixed or throttled" (Based on Worldwide Petrodollar demand) to support the American dollar and not subject to the laws of supply and demand ?
When..................................... ?
Iran.
Enough said.
Lets not forget the tax on gas, as the demand drops the revenew the gov. collects decreases then the tax goes up.
I'm seriously thinking about trading one of my hemi's for a Kia. That should help this chart. LOL.
Cash for clunkers probably got a lot of high fuel burners off the road permanently. I don't think that is all that is going on. But I am sure it is impacting the numbers to some degree.
Just cuz I inflated my tires like obammy said.....fuck yea.
People prefer flying with kerosene than driving with gas.....thanks to courteous TSA agents ! Monedas 2012 A woman can only be patted down by another woman who is certifide non-lesbian to avoid the moral risk !
Gay men and straight women can pat down straight women ! Straight men and lesbians can pat down straight men ! Only lesbians can pat down gay men and only gay men can pat down lesbians ! DHS is training a special corp of minor TSA agents to pat down other minors.....it's called Operation Play Doctor ! Monedas 2012 The deceitful web of Socialism ensnares all who fly !
When the retail price of gas diverged from its close correlation with the price of oil around 2010 I knew something was up. Thanks for filling in the blanks.
Now that im unemployed(and not receiving benefits btw) I spend more time riding my 4 wheeler. I'm sure that impacts the chart as well lol.
Also............ we need to find a beer sales graph and superimpose it on the gas consumption graph in this post. Ten bux says there is an inverse relationship.
This post got me thinking, the price of electricity is also tanking and has posted the largest decline since summer 2008. Maybe it's just the warm weather and the low price of natural gas? It's down almost 40% in four months, maybe the ECRI isn't so dumb after all - although their index ticked up last week.
This is no rocket science. Gasoline is a dying product. Cars are more efficient, electric, green washing is in full swing. The flow of gasoline supply has drastically shifted in the last few years. EU is a gasoline producer and US an importer. They used to be the biggest importer, but now with the civilized world pressure to pollute less and be more eco friendly, the NEW big gasoline destinations are Africa and China. However, geographically it only makes sense to supply to Africa from EU since India is supplying China.
Every once in a while, the flow changes back to the US, but most of the gasoline is not used for local consumption, its blended and sold on the south American market...
Gasoline is not really a product, it’s a blend of different products (components). So if we have a particular grade here in EU which is not suitable for S.America but the US refiners are producing a component which is cheap and can be used to modify the quality of the EU product, then the flow of EU-US makes financial sense again, as they are adding their value.
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