Gasoline demand going up

dan_s · Post by **dan_s** » Mon Sep 28, 2015 11:11 am

Another record for vehicle miles traveled (VMT): Did everyone make a trip to Walley World in July? VMT at an all-time record 284B miles in the month (+4.2% y/y), raising the YTD total to 1.82T miles (+3.7% y/y). Strongest regions were Southeast (+5.1% y/y), Atlantic (+5.0%), and West (+4.7%) but even the Midwest (+3.3%) and the Northeast (+2.5%) posted respectable numbers. Contributing factors to the strong demand included (1) an improving labor market, with 2.4mm more people in the labor market in July than last year, and (2) low retail prices, which averaged $2.88/gal in the month (-81c y/y). Notably, current retail prices of $2.43/gal are much lower.