The United States may have seen 2021 gasoline demand peak around the July 4 holiday, but increased airline traffic at domestic airports bodes well for the overall recovery in oil demand.
Gasoline demand in the United States may have peaked around July 4 for this year, and it is unlikely that the country could exceed it, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, tweeted on Monday.
“As a result, I'm feeling more like a peak in gas prices may be sooner than late July/early Aug,” De Haan added.
U.S. gasoline prices have jumped by around 40 percent since the beginning of this year, as tight supply amid recovering demand pushed global crude oil prices higher by around the same percentage.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $3.147 as of July 12, according to data from AAA.
Last week, gasoline prices rose after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that gas demand had jumped from 9.17 million barrels per day (bpd) to 10.04 million bpd last week.
“The estimated rate, which will likely be revised in a few months after verified data is available, is the highest weekly gas demand estimate released by EIA since 1991 and only reflects one day of the Independence Day holiday weekend,” AAA said on Thursday.
According to GasBuddy data, the latest weekly U.S. gasoline demand between Sunday and Saturday declined by 3.4 percent from the prior week, or 0.4 percent below the 4-week average.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration screened 2,198,635 individuals at security checkpoints on Sunday, July 11, TSA Public Affairs spokesperson Lisa Farbstein tweeted on Monday, adding that this was the highest checkpoint volume since the start of the pandemic.
The 7-day rolling average of airline traffic in the U.S. is now around 21 percent below the same period of 2019, Javier Blas, Chief Energy Correspondent at Bloomberg News, says, citing Bloomberg data.
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By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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If excise taxes were straight up eliminated on gasoline by all US Government at every level there would be huge support for the ongoing revolution in gasoline engine and hybrid drive train as a truly awesome tailwind for US economic growth going into the 2022 midterms.
"C'est la vie" of course.