Decline in oil demand slows in July: API

Bill Bush | 202-682-8069 | bushw@api.org

WASHINGTON, August 19, 2009 - July oil product deliveries (a measure of demand) fell 3.0 percent from a year ago, which slowed the rate of decline by half compared with the first half of the year.

Despite the overall decline in product deliveries, gasoline deliveries rose a modest 0.8 percent, and distillate fuel oil deliveries (including diesel fuel) marked their first month in almost two years without a significant dip. Jet fuel deliveries fell nearly 12 percent from a year ago to their lowest July level since 1993, and residual oil deliveries dropped by more than one-fourth.

“The data are consistent with reports the economic downturn may be flattening out,” said Ron Planting, manager, information and analysis for the American Petroleum Institute. “However, U.S. oil demand is still significantly below where it was a year ago.”

Weaker demand was also reflected in declining refinery output, except output of gasoline, which rose 2.8 percent from a year ago. Year-to-date gasoline production was also the second highest ever. And, though down from a year ago, July’s average utilization rate at U.S. refineries, at 84 percent of capacity, was at the second highest level since November, and remained nearly 20 percentage points above the average utilization rate across all U.S. manufacturing industries.

Inventories of most major products rose during July, with some of the products with the weakest demand reaching recent-year record levels. The largest volume increase was for jet fuel. Gasoline inventories rose a little over 3 million barrels to a level about 4 percent above the average for the last five years.

While the year-to-date average for U.S. crude oil production was close to 3 percent higher than a year earlier, July production dropped for the first time since October as pipeline maintenance slowed production in Alaska. Lower-48 production continued its year-to-year gains in July, and U.S. production for January-June averaged 5.26 million barrels per day, the highest for the same period in four years.

July’s U.S. petroleum imports fell 10.3 percent compared with a year ago, with similar declines for both crude oil and products. Year-to-date petroleum imports, at 12.0 million barrels per day, hovered more than 1 million barrels per day lower than one year earlier, and 1.7 million barrels per day less than the record January-July level set in 2006.