Is the seasonality of the past couple of years something new, or was the non-seasonality of the few preceeding years the exception?

If the seasonality is emergent, what is causing it? More and longer vacation driving? More hurricane evacuations? Or something else?

My guess: with supply now very close to the inelastic demand, slight changes in either can cause major price swings. Seasonal driving patterns in the USA cause such changes in demand. Hurricanes and wars cause changes in supply, but that's not as reliably "seasonal".

We can call it the "Peak Oil Buzzsaw."

Each spike slices through what's left of discretionary income and leaves the US economy in an increasing morass of bloody tatters.

-best,

Wolf

Superimpose a supply chart over the price chart and it becomes obvious what is happening.

Ghawar Is Dying
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. - Dr. Albert Bartlett