Prices starting to drag on U.S. oil demand.
335 words 13 April 2005 12:16 pm Reuters NewsServiceLine (c) 2005 Reuters Limited
NEW YORK, April 13 (Reuters) - Recent record high oil and gasoline prices may finally be having a dampening effect on U.S. consumer demand, the U.S. Energy Information Administration's data on Wednesday showed. Both gasoline demand and total oil product demand are less than 2004 rates in the past two weeks, according to EIA figures. That is the first time this has happened this year.
"We may be discerning a bigger demand impact from prices, but it's too early to know definitely," said Doug MacIntyre, EIA analyst. He said the EIA likes to use four-week averages, which still show 2005 with more demand than last year. MacIntyre said two weeks is sufficient time to spot a trend, but too short to say "definitively" there is a drag on demand because of record-high prices.
Still, in the past two weeks, demand is down compared with last year. This has occurred as crude oil, gasoline, and distillate futures benchmarks on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit record highs. In the past two weeks, total products demand is 20.2 million barrels per day, down from 20.5 million bpd a year ago. Gasoline demand in the past two weeks has been 9.1 million bpd, compared with 9.3 million bpd in the same two-week period in 2004, EIA figures show.
Using four-week averages, this year is still about 1.4 percent higher than 2004 for gasoline demand and about 1.1 percent higher for total oil products burned. But this year, demand seems to be ebbing early-March to early-April when it rose in 2004, the EIA figures showed. In 2004, in four weeks to April 8, total oil product demand rose 850,000 bpd. This year, in the same stretch, it has fallen 650,000 bpd. A year ago, crude oil prices were about 27 percent lower for crude oil and about 23 percent lower for gasoline. |
