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963 views Jan 23, 2014 23 Comments
Posted on 01/24/2014 9:42:41 PM PST by ckilmer
Oil well (photo by John Hill)
With increasing energy efficiency in cars
, homes, and industry, plus a surge in domestic natural-gas production, U.S. demand for oil is widely said to have tapered off and in fact begun a structural decline.
Except that, as it turns out, last year it seems U.S. demand for oil actually rose by 390,000 barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency.
That represented fully one-third of the total global increase in demand.
An article in today's Financial Times from London notes that global energy analysts have been startled by an apparent increase of 4 to 5 percent in U.S. oil consumption last year.
Gas pump
The weekly data, from the U.S. Energy Information, was dismissed at first. As more data has accrued, analysts are starting to conclude the U.S. will lead global oil demand--perhaps even exceeding the increase in demand from China for the first time since 1999.
MUST READ: Electric Cars & Solar: Will They Make Gasoline & Utilities Obsolete?
The causes are diverse. The market for full-size pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles is surging, after several years of lower sales, and gasoline prices remain between $3 and $4 per gallon, the same range they've stayed in since roughly 2008.
While U.S. gasoline consumption peaked in 2006 and will decline going forward, it alone still accounts for almost 10 percent of global oil consumption.
U.S. industrial output and farm harvests have both increased, and increased production of shale oil from North American sources provides alternative feedstocks for chemical production.
The U.S. still exports oil products, but growth in those exports slowed markedly last year compared to 2012, as higher domestic consumption increased demand.
Meanwhile, the increase in oil demand in China was the lowest since 2005--and it is now a net exporter of both diesel fuel and gasoline.
The numbers remain somewhat in dispute, and analysts will continue to pore over reams of data and debate trends and causes.
But the overall message seems to be that global demand for oil will continue to rise as the economic recovery takes hold.
While the U.S. will soon have more than 200,000 plug-in electric zero-emission vehicles on its roads--out of a total pool of roughly 250 million vehicles--the new data offer a reminder that there's a very long way to go before demand for oil to fuel our vehicles declines more than incrementally.
And the same applies, even more so, to the more than 1 billion vehicles on the world's roads.
ping
Maybe shutting down the coal fired plants and the nuclear power plants might have something to do with it.
High grain prices last year caused alot of CRP and hay ground to get turned back under.
Just sayin’
Great post.
GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!
Kind of refutes the above nonsense, doesn't it?
We’d be rockin and rollin now, with the right government.
Enemies aren’t at the gate; they’re inside the wire..
Worse, they’re in the command post, sending out the orders.
This is from an article I just read about
“American consumption of oil also rose last year, by 390,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 percent, to 18.9 million barrels a day”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3115473/posts
Now this one says 4-5%. Hmmm.....
Yeah.
I’m afraid I stand corrected.
Time to scatter and assimilate.
I wonder how much of the increase was due to using liquid fuel turbines to produce electricity and charge the electric cars? </sorta sarcasm>
Yeah I know. I’m seeing the same discrepancies. The percentages seem to be off. But the hard number remains the same.
The basic thing is that demand grew a lot an unexpectedly in 2013. The EIA expects USA demand to flatten in 2014. But given the spike in demand in the last quarter of 2013, it seems likely that the demand will continue through 2014. I don’t know whether the spike was cold related or economy related or both. There is a case for the demand surge to be economy related since its growing at a 3% clip in the last quarter. However, it has been cold. Someone else would have to burrow into the numbers to get an answer.
Partially right but I think that the EPA has had a larger part in the consumption. More oil and gas found, less coal driven, about even I’d guess. Actually, I’d guess that the EPA has more influence on consumption and prices than anything else (at least here in the US at this time).
I blame my truck. I took a long road trip at 9.2mpg....
“Now this one says 4-5%. Hmmm.....”
It’s difficult to gather data as there’s no requirement for a company to report what it produced or exported. Having sat in corporate meetings where managers turned a horrible disaster into a marvelous victory by manipulating the numbers I’m skeptical of all pronouncements. I suspect that demand may be up, but by how much is a guess.
As to people buying SUV’s and trucks, I’ve been driving a VW Jetta Sportwagen for a year. I feel cramped and confined. Last night I dusted off my 2003 Mercury Marauder and picked up dinner guests. (It’s a Gran Marque body.) It felt so good not to be stuffed into a little econobox. If government got out of the way fuel prices would drop and we wouldn’t have to be perpetually crushed in luxurious but uncomfortable cars.
BTW, VW, if you’re listening, you could improve the car immeasurably by PUTTING IN A BENCH SEAT!
Three words.....Doggie Drag Racing.
I went downstairs the other night about 2am to get a drink of water. In comes the youngest dog from the garage. I asked him what he was doing. He said that him and his buddies had been out drag racing. He said they do it every night.
He told me, “You may think we dogs stick our heads out of car windows for fresh air, but we’re actually scouting for drag strips.”
I was shocked. He had seen those bloody crash movies at Doggie Drivers Ed. Didn’t he appreciate the danger in his actions?
“We only pretend to like chasing balls”, he said. “Our real joy is putting the hammer down and smoking the tires!”
Finally, it all made sense. The black racing gloves he wanted for Christmas. The turbocharger. The dog slobber on the steering wheel.
I told him we’d discuss this further in the morning. I crawled back into bed, and my wife asked what was the matter. I told her about the pup drag racing.
“I told you not to read him GO DOG GO so many times”, she said.
Don’t just leave the car keys on the table. Lock them up at night or you’ll be living your version of FAST AND FURRY-OUS.
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