Global Oil Demand Starts a Long, Painful and Uncertain Recovery3 May 2020 15:08
https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/global-oil-demand-starts-a-long-painful-and-uncertain-recovery
But this week Gorder didn’t even need his business insight to know that fuel consumption was starting to recover in America.
He only needed to look at the streets of San Antonio, the Texas city where he’s based, to see traffic emerging after weeks of lockdown.
From the streets of San Antonio to Barcelona and Beijing, traffic data, sales at fuel stations, and pipeline flows all suggest that the slump in oil demand probably bottomed out around the middle of April, and has now started a modest — and very tentative — recovery. The signs matter beyond the petroleum industry as they provide a glimmer of hope after a torrent of negative economic data.
“I believe we have seen the bottom,” said Marco Dunand, co-founder of Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., one of the world’s top-5 oil trading houses.
In the U.S., the amount of gasoline supplied to the market increased last week to nearly 5.9 million barrels a day, up from 5.1 million in the first week of April but well below the typically more than 9 million before the virus, according to the official data. Early last month, refiners saw gasoline demand at 55% of normal level, which improved to 64% in the latest seven-day average. Valero confirmed on Thursday that it’s seeing some pick-up.