US petroleum demand tumbled last week amid surging coronavirus cases, setting the scene for a lacklustre Thanksgiving holiday period were more American motorists opt to stay home. Petrol demand fell by 6 percent in the seven days to November 13 to 8.3m barrels a day, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration. “What you’re seeing is, in response to Covid, people are staying closer to home and celebrating with fewer people,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “It’s going to be a quiet Thanksgiving this year.”
Afresh surge in coronavirus cases across the US has forced people to dial back their movements once again as state authorities impose new restrictions on travel. There were almost 156,000 virus cases reported in the US on Tuesday, according to the Covid Tracking Project, compared with about 43,000 two months ago. That has hit travel patterns over the holiday period. Last year two-thirds of Americans took to the roads to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, according to a GasBuddy survey. This year the figure is set to be less than a third.
Petrol demand was about 10 percent lower last week compared with the same period last year, according to the EIA data. The latest decline comes after consumption had ticked up 5 percent, week-on week, in the previous seven days, stoking optimism in the market that drivers were returning to the roads. But overall traffic has been in decline since the end of the summer driving season in August, according to Bernstein Research, dragging on crude demand.
Air travel, another important segment of the oil market, has remained subdued as international travel has failed to recover from the blow dealt by coronavirus. Jet fuel consumption fell by a quarter last week, according to the EIA.