U.S. Gasoline Consumption Plummets By Nearly 75%

a reply to: Bassago

Thing is, in 1998 car manufacturers and the public that owned them weren't overly concerned with efficient MPG on their cars..and at $1.50 - $2.00 per gallon, who could blame them right?

But, at $4.00 - $5.00+ per gallon, MPG stats on vehicles is a lot more important than it once was in the states.

In 98, the average car would do what...20 MPG? 25 MPG?

Now it's probably 35 - 45 MPG...there's your 75% decrease in petrol right there - more efficient engines.

That doesn't even include the hybrid vehicles, that have very small petrol engines to go along with the electric motors the drive with.

Factor those in and it easily explains the drop, add in the economics as the icing on the crap cake, and it's no surprise at all.

After looking at all the different charts it appears the largest drop is between the refinery and corporate storage facilities.
Companies like Shell and Texaco invested millions in tank storage hedging against an "expected" demand and price increase.
The expected storage time would have been less than 6 months to avoid the cost of bulk stabilization.
In practice I have heard some reports of people getting stale gasoline at the pump that must have been over a year old.
Maybe some of that recent big drop was covered by draw down from the storage facilities?

There seems some consensus that vehicle fuel economy improvements a a big factor here. After looking at a lot of charts on this I'm not seeing it. Even factoring out heavy duty vehicles it looks to me the average mileage of the remaining categories is only around 20mpg.

Oh so the usage in the US of a deadly poison killing our earth is being less used and this is bad news?

Screw this "economy", we should just stop playing this stupid monopoly game, get up, walk out and do something else.
We ain't getting no where better in the direction we are heading, we should change our path.

a reply to: Char-Lee

Sitting by the lakeshore fishing or swimming doesn't cost much. Getting together with friends or relatives for a bbq doesn't cost anymore than eating at home. starting a garden can actually save money. taking a bike ride can be fun, so can snowshoeing. How about going out camping at a rustic campground or going to a local function instead of spending your money at Vegas or going on a cruise ship.

It doesn't have to cost more to have fun, but we have been programmed to think so.

Yup. We're using less oil all together. That's cool.
Source

Not driving a whole lot less, which is interesting in respect to the apparent decline in gasoline sales volume (if that's what is really being seen).
Source

a reply to: Bassago


Had a little discussion with the wife on this subject, her reply was simple. For this kind of loss in regards to consumption on the public side, distributors would have had to gone out of business. As of yet none of the east coast dist. have even slowed down, let alone gone under. She has 10 years of records on computer accounting systems with steady growth. The feeling is something is awry with the article.

a reply to: MarlinGrace
It's a matter of figuring out exactly what is being measured. Another chart from the same source:

www.eia.gov...

Definition from the source:

Sales to End Users: Sales made directly to the consumer of the product. Includes bulk consumers, such as agriculture, industry, and utilities, as well as residential and commercial consumers.

www.eia.gov...

originally posted by: rickymouse
a reply to: Char-Lee

Sitting by the lakeshore fishing or swimming doesn't cost much. Getting together with friends or relatives for a bbq doesn't cost anymore than eating at home. starting a garden can actually save money. taking a bike ride can be fun, so can snowshoeing. How about going out camping at a rustic campground or going to a local function instead of spending your money at Vegas or going on a cruise ship.

It doesn't have to cost more to have fun, but we have been programmed to think so.

Not sure i am understanding you, most of the suggestions you gave involve driving isn't that what we was talking about? not driving.

An interesting aspect to this. Same website, different sets of data. Hmmm..

EIA Product Supplied by type and category

If someone can load the xls file, I highly recommend it, as the spreadsheet is columns of the types with rows of dates. Most starting in the 80's. An interesting contrast...and much easier to read that way. They are different data points, of course. You'd think trends would show something similar tho. The link is the national look and can be broken down into segmented US regions of delivery, as opposed to exports in another area, at least as I'm reading that?

I am starting to think Agenda 21 is at play here. Make it to costly for people to live or work from rural locations forcing them into more urban areas which are more easily controlled. This is speculation but we can look at some data. Combined with the other factors mentioned this could be another reason for the decline.


The information presented by the USDA at the US census site is pretty interesting in regards to the shift. This information is fairly recent too. Not that we can trust their numbers to be presented to us accurately .

Census.Gov

Here is one slide from the presentation

a reply to: Bassago

Gas on Average here in N.J. is around $4.45 a Gallon Right Now . Tourism is on a Down Trend so far this Summer of 2014 , and the Numbers of people who Usually take a Summer Vacation here are Showing to be Lower than Exspected . People are Driving Less , and this News just Confirms it . Drive Less , Pay More >? WTF !

a reply to: Bassago

Consumption is falling because prices have been rising. In 1998 one gallon of gas was $1.17 today it is $3.67. (prices found on Google)

So that is 75% decrease in consumption
117 is 31% of 367 so theres some sort of mathematical parallel there I'm sure.

a reply to: Zanti Misfit

People are Driving Less , and this News just Confirms it .

A bit. Not 75% less. A 2% drop in miles traveled from 2007 to 2012.
Source

a reply to: Phage

So , if I come from Ohio to N.J. for a Vacation , I haven't come this Year Because I can't Afford the " Miles " to get there Because.............Yada Yada .............

a reply to: Zanti Misfit
There has not been a major decline in miles traveled.
I suppose your results may vary but it does not seem that the apparent reduction in retail gasoline sales corresponds to the number of vehicle miles traveled.

Average gasoline costs have risen about 7% from 2008 (in some locales they are lower). If you're getting 20 mpg that's about 45 gallons for the round trip so it would cost you about $10-$20 more now.
www.eia.gov...

I understand that there are other factors involved when considering affordability.

a reply to: Phage

After looking at your charts and both sources you linked I am still at a loss for the claim (in the OP article) that US gas consumption is down 75%. The total driven miles is down only a couple percent and apparently higher than it almost ever was. Adding in current fuel efficiency improvements may bring consumption down several percent but doubtful it will be a huge amount (maybe I'm wrong.)

A couple interesting things I noticed on the EIA site were 1) refinery storage totals haven't changed much over the last year and 2) Crude exports for the US are cooking right along. Guess that goes to show that the capitalistic mantra of "supply and demand" may be somewhat overrated.

a reply to: Bassago

I did notice one data set that had changed quite dramatically.

Exports

Almost doubled since 2008 in that data.

Product Supplied, Imports, and stocks have all remained fairly constant. Nothing dramatic anyway. Exports are what has changed. For what that may be worth...

** Sorry.. I should have read your second paragraph there... I was just starting to read your 1st when I realized..I had all those things open on tabs from just looking at them to easily link. Didn't mean to repeat ya...

I think I figured it out. The OP chart is for Retail Sales by Refiners.

Refiner: A firm or the part of a firm that refines products or blends and substantially changes products, or refines liquid hydrocarbons from oil and gas field gases, or recovers liquefied petroleum gases incident to petroleum refining and sells those products to resellers, retailers, reseller/retailers or ultimate consumers. "Refiner" includes any owner of products that contracts to have those products refined and then sells the refined products to resellers, retailers, or ultimate consumers. For the purposes of this survey, gas plant operator data are included in this category.

www.eia.gov...

So, the refiners are making fewer sales:

directly to the consumer of the product. Includes bulk consumers, such as agriculture, industry, and utilities, as well as residential and commercial consumers.

Less in direct retail sales from refiners to consumers. More middle men.

Gasoline production hasn't changed much and exports don't make much of a dent. There could be actual less gasoline usage, but I think it would be more on the order of 2% (in line with reduced vehicle miles). This chart shows a 4% drop.
www.eia.gov...

A bit less driving. Electric vehicles. More efficient vehicles. Voila.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: MarlinGrace
It's a matter of figuring out exactly what is being measured. Another chart from the same source:

www.eia.gov...

Definition from the source:

Sales to End Users: Sales made directly to the consumer of the product. Includes bulk consumers, such as agriculture, industry, and utilities, as well as residential and commercial consumers.

www.eia.gov...

Thats why I qualified it with public side consumption, but she tracks everything from government, commercial, to retail of course being a CFO she should. But in no way have they had any short falls or reduction in deliveries. Infact they have grown very well. The funny thing is I would think that the consumption pie is stable and they have their percentage. When I asked who she was taking the growth from I got the CFO look along with thats sales side information. Finance and sales usually don't get along. Very testy.

They deliver over a 100 million gallons of fuel a year here on the East Coast.