U.S. gasoline demand is running around 300,000 barrels per day above last year’s level, as lower pump prices and continued economic expansion encourage motorists to use their cars more. Estimates for gasoline supplied to U.S. customers published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show demand consistently running above the same point in 2014 There is no way accurately to measure fuel consumption in real time. EIA estimates product supplied as a residual from reported refinery output, imports, exports and stock changes. Errors estimating the other terms therefore result in errors estimating demand. Exports are particularly problematic because the agency does not survey these directly and has to the delayed publication of customs data. EIA’s estimating procedure can have problems allocating the disappearance of fuel between domestic use and exports particularly when the level of exports is changing rapidly. Nonetheless, the data show clearly large amounts of […]