Gasoline demand down 7.8 percent year-on-year: report
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retail gasoline demand dropped 7.8 percent from the same period last year despite a dip in gasoline prices, MasterCard Advisors said Tuesday.
"You're looking at a one-week anomaly," said Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis at MasterCard Advisors. "This week last year was the peak of the driving season and was the highest volume week in all of 2007."
During the same week a year ago, gasoline prices hit a low of $2.75 per gallon which prompted a rise in gasoline demand. That was not repeated this year.
American motorists pumped an average of 9.453 million barrels per day in the week ended August 15, down just 0.1 percent from the prior week.
A better indication of consumption trends is the four-week moving average, which shows a gasoline demand decline of 4.8 percent from year-ago levels, McNamara said.
The average price of gasoline in the U.S. slipped 7 cents last week to $3.77 per gallon, but prices will have to drop further for U.S. consumers to ramp up their consumption of the motor fuel, McNamara said.
"Maybe when you see prices come down further, you'll start to see another tipping point where people will start to change their behavior," McNamara said, noting that gasoline prices are still 37 percent above last year's levels. "It doesn't seem as though we've hit a price threshold that's really going to stimulate a behavior change yet."
Year-to-date, gasoline consumption was down 2.5 percent from last year.
Meanwhile, in a Reuters poll, energy analysts forecast that the Energy Information Administration would report a decline in U.S. gasoline inventories for the fourth week in a row as imports continue to decline and refinery outages hamper production.
MasterCard Advisors estimates retail gasoline demand based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments system coupled with estimates for all other payment forms. MasterCard Advisors is a unit of MasterCard Inc.
(Reporting by Rebekah Kebede; Editing by John Picinich)
