Bill Bush | 202.682.8069 | bushw@api.org
WASHINGTON, September 17, 2008 – August oil product deliveries (a measure of demand) fell 3.0 percent from a year ago even as prices for gasoline, diesel and other products were declining, according to API’s Monthly Statistical Report. August gasoline demand slipped about 2.2 percent. While August prices for gasoline were up 36 percent from a year ago, from early July to late August this year they fell 43 cents per gallon.
“Because of higher prices and economic uncertainty, we aren’t using or importing as much oil,” said Ron Planting, manager, information and analysis for API.
For the first eight months of the year compared to a year ago, demand for all petroleum products declined 4.0 percent. “The last time January-to-August deliveries experienced a year-to-year decline of this magnitude was more than a quarter century ago, in 1982,” said Planting.
In August 2005, the nation consumed more oil than in any August ever, a total of 21.7 million barrels a day. At 20.4 million barrels a day, August 2008 deliveries were nearly 6 percent less.
Inputs to crude distillation units (an overall measure of refinery activity) were 4.1 percent below August 2007. The slide partly reflects preparation for hurricanes at Gulf Coast refineries. Nevertheless, combined production of the four major oil products (gasoline, distillate, residual fuel oil, and kerosene jet fuel) was at the third-highest-ever monthly level.
While refiners continued to produce impressive amounts of gasoline and other oil products, product imports fell by nearly 14 percent, with total gasoline imports averaging 1.1 million barrels a day in August. The record for gasoline imports for any month is 1.5 million barrels per day in October 2005.
Crude oil imports in August 2008 were down 2.0 percent from August of last year.
Gulf Coast hurricane preparations and shut-downs and maintenance in Alaska combined to depress August U.S. crude oil production by 1.0 percent from a year ago to an average of 4.87 million barrels a day. Alaska’s crude oil output for the month was the lowest since July 1977, the first full month of operation of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System.
Crude inventories at the end of August were 302.5 million barrels, 0.6 percent below the five-year average for that month. Gasoline inventories were 197.8 million barrels, within 0.7 percent of the five-year average.