U.S. gasoline demand over the Memorial Day weekend is estimated to be 1.1% lower than demand for the same weekend last year, despite the surging gas prices at the start of the driving season in 2022, data from fuel-saving app GasBuddy showed early on Tuesday.
"According to GasBuddy data, US gasoline demand over the Memorial Day weekend (Thur-Mon) so far is down 1.1% from 2022. Once Tuesday is complete, we'll add it to see the total weekend," GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, said.
On Memorial Day on Monday, gasoline demand in the United States was down by 3.6% compared to Memorial Day 2022, according to GasBuddy data, De Haan noted.
Gasoline prices in the United States were up slightly on Memorial Day, the official start of the summer driving season, though Americans are still paying less at the pump than they were a year ago, or even a month ago.
The national average price for a gallon of gasoline at American pumps on Monday was $3.582, up from $3.540 a week ago, but down from $3.615 a month ago and $4.610 per gallon a year ago, according to AAA.
Forecasters had expected Memorial Day gasoline demand to increase by 6% year-over-year for 2023, predicting that more than 37 million Americans will have hit the roads over the extended holiday weekend.
While GasBuddy estimates weaker demand this Memorial Day weekend compared to last year, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said on Tuesday that the number of airline passengers during the Memorial Day weekend exceeded pre-Covid levels from 2019 by 300,000.
Over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, TSA screened almost 9.8 million individuals at airports nationwide, which is about 300,000 higher than the same holiday weekend in 2019. Friday's final volume of about 2.74 million passengers screened was the highest post-pandemic single-day record, TSA said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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