Stories tagged with "petroleum demand"

Can you believe EIA Weekly petroleum demand estimates?

Posted by Gail the Actuary on February 27, 2009 - 4:06pm
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: eia, petroleum demand [list all tags]

On the post I put up yesterday called "A Few Thoughts about Petroleum Demand, Inventories, and Price", a couple of people commented that my forecasts of expected petroleum demand didn't match up well with recent weekly surveys. There is a reason for this, which is illustrated by EIA's demand numbers for December which were released today:

If one looks at the weekly forecasts, they are considerably higher than the monthly actual amounts. This seems to happen on a regular basis. For the year 2008, EIA's forecasts averaged 654,000 barrels a day higher than I would have estimated based on weekly data. This is about 3.4% high - not great if that is the basis for statements about how demand is running.

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A Few Thoughts on US Petroleum Demand, Inventories, and Prices

Posted by Gail the Actuary on February 26, 2009 - 4:50pm
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: eia, gasoline demand, inventories, petroleum demand, west texas intermediate [list all tags]

The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil finally seems to be rising. At least part of this may be occurring because inventories at Cushing finally seem to be drawing rather than increasing:


Figure 1. Weekly Change in Crude Stocks in Cushing OK--Graph by Morgan Downey

WTI has recently been trading at a discount to Brent. The shift in the inventory situation may help get this relationship back to a more normal relationship, with WTI priced above Brent.

One might also ask whether US demand is playing a role in higher prices. Below the fold I show a few graphs that seem to indicate that US demand is really not up much yet.

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