Oil Prices Up Equals Demand Down For 2008 :: MAXINE

When oil flows ... freedom grows here in the United States. Image from an animation showing how oil is retrieved through processes used on an offshore oil drilling rig. Image Credit: Still from video provided by the API (2008)

Oil Prices Up Equals Demand Down For 2008

U.S. oil demand was significantly down for the first six months of 2008, API said today in its Monthly Statistical Report. While U.S. refiners churned out record and near-record amounts of oil products, imports – especially product imports -- fell substantially.

What is the most interesting detail in these stats is what is not stated … that this demand fell without any U.S. Government intervention. These figures fell due to the forces of supply and demand when the overlay of a sudden price increase takes effect.

API statistics manager Ron Planting said, “At 20.08 million barrels per day, total demand was the lowest in five years. And the decline in gasoline demand was the first significant one recorded in 17 years. Higher pump prices and a slowing economy were undoubtedly factors.”

This excerpted from a press release from the American Petroleum Institute -

U.S. oil demand drops in first half of 2008
Bill Bush - API (American Petroleum Institute) - Updated:July 18, 2008

Deliveries of all oil products – a measure of demand – fell 3.0 percent compared with the same first-half-year period in 2007, with gasoline deliveries slipping 1.7 percent. For the preceding three years, oil demand had essentially held steady.
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At 2.0 percent, the second-quarter decline in demand for gasoline was even greater than for the first six months. However, the 1.8 percent decline for all products for the last three months, compared with the same period a year ago, was less in part because of a 2.1 percent increase in demand for distillates, which includes diesel fuels and home heating oil.
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Overall U.S. oil imports, including crude oil and oil products, sank to their lowest first-half level since 2003, at less than 13 million barrels per day.

Crude oil inventories declined to 301 million barrels at the end of June, down 54 million barrels from last year’s recent-year record and the lowest mid-year level since 2003. Consistent with relatively stronger demand for diesel fuel than for gasoline, gasoline inventories ended June up from a year ago while diesel inventories were down. U.S. crude oil production fell by 2.2 percent for the first half of 2008 compared with 2007.
Reference Here>>    

If Energy = Freedom … does this mean that the demand for freedom is down as well?

One wonders what will happen to our hard fought freedoms now that our Democrat leaders in Congress have declared their "No-Drill" petroleum policy to coincide with their intended desire to attack the oil companies with a windfall profits TAX.