
What is up with U.S. retail gasoline deliveries? - ngvrnd
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=a103600001&f=m
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RockyMcNuts
Looks to me like they split it up into retail sales by gas stations owned by
the refiner, and wholesale sales for resale.

Most sales are wholesale -
[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=A103700001&f=M)

Going to take a wild guess and say that a refinery sold some gas stations or
somehow a bunch of sales got reclassified from retail to wholesale.

See definitions
[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/TblDefs/pet_cons_refmg_tbldef2.a...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/TblDefs/pet_cons_refmg_tbldef2.asp)

If you think about it 25m gallons per day is not the right number for the USA,
it's like 0.1 gallons per person order of magnitude, 10x that seems more
reasonable, you also have to count all the public transportation, trucks etc.

If you hie over to FRED and look at retail sales from gasoline stations (which
also includes candy bars, lottery tickets, etc. and is in dollars, not
gallons), you will also see there was no recent massive drop -

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CES4244700001>

edit: Ack! that's employment at gas stations. Here is retail sales at gas
stations -

<http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/cenret/nrt447sa>

the human mind is truly a rationalizing machine - when you look hard enough
for a reason you will always find it, even when the data is bad.

~~~
mbell
That was my conclusion as well, this seems to be a more realistic
representation of consumption:
[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WRPUPUS2&f=W)

Although its not easy to tell, the EIA's site could use some improvements in
terms of clearly defining what the data displayed represents.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
That data set isn't entirely helpful for addressing questions about U.S.
retail gasoline consumption. "Petroleum products", as defined by the EIA,
include "heating oils; gasoline, diesel and jet fuels; lubricants; asphalt;
ethane, propane, and butane; and many other products used for their energy or
chemical content" [1].

[1] <http://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/?id=petroleum>

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dangrossman
Average vehicle fuel economy hit its all-time high [1], and there's been a
massive cut-back in how much people drive [2]. Americans are driving less and
when they do drive, they're driving cars that use less fuel per mile.

You can likely credit the fuel economy increase on the federal mandates for
higher MPG ratings on new cars, and the cut-back in driving on the high
unemployment and stagnant/falling real wages of the employed.

Whatever the cause for the drop in September/October 2011 was, that was only a
drop in refinery sales, as gas sales at the pump experienced no such fall [3].

1: [http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0223/Americans-
trend-...](http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0223/Americans-trend-line-
on-gasoline-Use-less-spend-more)

2:
[http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2008/12/16-transpo...](http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2008/12/16-transportation-
tomer-puentes)

3: <http://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gasoline_station_sales>

~~~
nostrademons
Alternatively, you can credit both the fuel economy increase and the cut-back
in driving on higher gas prices, which can in turn be credited to rising
global demand for gasoline.

~~~
dredmorbius
Prices can rise in response to both rising demand and falling supply.

Given that we're within the window of peak oil forecasts, and demand
(particularly in India and China) has been rising, it's very likely both.

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anovikov
These numbers represent under 10% of total U.S. gasoline use so this is no way
due to 'fuel economy' or 'driving less', it is just reflecting the fact that
less and less gas stations are owned by refineries.

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jahmed
Its that 2011 September October decrease thats particularly interesting. I'm
trying to think of what happened that would have caused a 25%ish drop in
sales.

~~~
hristov
I think there was a round of refinery closings around that time.

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spydum
Production doesn't show a massive dip, but does show a general decline.
[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MGFRX_NUS_1&f=M)

price spikes do seem to align though..
[http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&...](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg&f=m)

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carsongross
Pretty simple: the U.S. economy is contracting severely, even though the
manipulated (and preposterous, if you think about them for more than a moment)
economic statistics (GDP, U3) are not.

I'm not saying this is The Big One (I've been expecting it for a decade now)
but I do expect The Big One to start a lot like this.

~~~
zevyoura
Do you have any evidence of this contraction? I'd be curious to hear which
statistics you think are better indicators.

~~~
carsongross
Sure.

You are looking at one, in gasoline sales.

U6 over 15% looks pretty miserable:

    
    
      http://helpthe99ers.blogspot.com/2012/02/graph-of-day-u3-u4-and-u6.html
    

and the less-easily-manipulated population employment ratio is bouncing along
the bottom (maybe contracting):

    
    
      http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
    

General sales taxes in CA are down (although the latest data is not up yet):

    
    
      http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/state-taxes/california/general-sales-and-gross-receipts/tax-revenue-per-capita/2011/q3#graph
    

Generally, the harder the statistic, the worse the situation looks. Which,
given that we are in an election year and should expect the govt. to be
juicing the economy as much as it can, should be worrying.

~~~
zevyoura
None of those three look good, but, as far as I can tell, none indicate a
contraction... at worst they indicate that things are remaining bad, but not
getting worse. The first appears to be improving, slowly. The second appears
to be hovering aroung the same level since 2010. The third link is broken for
me, but when I find the data I think you're referencing on that site it
appears that there is a dip in the latest quarter, but if you look at the
history that data clearly does not track the overall performance of the
economy very closely. I can't say I find your claim very credible so far, but
if you have additional evidence I'd be very interested.

~~~
carsongross
They all indicate a very weak to declining economy and, of course, they are
all trailing indicators. With the ISM miss this month and the latest jobs
debacle, I expect us to be officially in recession by the end of the year
(with all the experts shocked, of course.)

OTOH, it's an election year, and Bernanke will print, so who can say?

~~~
rishonik
> Bernanke will print

Anyone holding paper is going to suffer some bad hurt in the coming year.

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pplante
whats also interesting is that the price of gas hasn't moved much either:
<http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx?time=24>

i guess this is a case where lower demand has kept prices high.

~~~
niggler
Pump prices are _very_ sticky and depend on the cost of production per
country.

With recently depressed crude prices, some countries are actually pulling back
production.

[http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im...](http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/08/OPEC%20breakevens.jpg)

~~~
ComputerGuru
The notable exception being Saudi, which (with America's complete approval, I
suppose) ramps up production to drive down the cost of petroleum to make sure
that Iran does not derive as much profit from its sales as it could, even at
detriment to itself, as a calculated move in the cold war between those two
countries.

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carbocation
There's not much context, but I'm struck by the fact that this appears to have
been a (very modest) leading indicator before the Great Recession.

~~~
anonymoushn
I'm not sure it was a useful one. There is a similar dip in the early 90s that
doesn't seem to correspond to much.

~~~
carbocation
Perhaps sensitive but nonspecific?

~~~
001sky
look at historical prices, my guess is they were spiking

[yes, from $1.XX in '05 to $4.XX in '08]

edit: citation

[http://66.70.86.64/ChartServer/ch.gaschart?Country=Canada...](http://66.70.86.64/ChartServer/ch.gaschart?Country=Canada&Crude=f&Period=96&Areas=USA%20Average,,&Unit=US%20$/G)

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ForumRatt
"U.S. Total Gasoline Retail Sales by Refiners"

does this include imported gasoline from foreign refiners, I doubt it, we
import more gasoline these days.

