-May 28,2020
Several sources say Memorial Day 2020 gasoline demand was still not back to normal.Oil analyst Tom Kloza says “OPIS numbers suggest gasoline demand destruction in the 25-29% range. Either side of 7-million b/d as opposed to “normal” demand in the 9.4-million b/d range in 2016-2019.”
A Bloomberg story adds “While beaches were open and states across the country emerged from coronavirus-related lockdowns, demand for gasoline ended up falling over the Memorial Day weekend. That may have been because people kept their driving local, when in previous years they had traveled farther, according to Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston.
Filling up at Costco Friday before the Memorial Day weekend in San Luis Obispo we had no wait to get a pump – very unusual on any day.
For the first time in 20 years, AAA did not issue a Memorial Day travel forecast, but anecdotal reports suggest fewer people will hit the road compared to years past for what is considered the unofficial start of the summer travel season.
“Last year, 43 million Americans traveled for Memorial Day Weekend – the second-highest travel volume on record since AAA began tracking holiday travel volumes in 2000,” said Paula Twidale, senior vice president, AAA Travel. “With social distancing guidelines still in practice, this holiday weekend’s travel volume is likely to set a record low.”
Memorial Day 2009 currently holds the record for the lowest travel volume at nearly 31 million travelers, according to AAA. That holiday weekend, which came toward the end of the Great Recession, 26.4 million Americans traveled by car, 2.1 million by plane and nearly 2 million by other forms of transportation (train, cruise, etc.).