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Oil Traders on Edge as Gasoline Demand Shows Signs of Cracking - Bloomberg

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Oil Traders on Edge as Gasoline Demand Shows Signs of Cracking - Bloomberg

Oil Traders on Edge as Gasoline Demand Shows Signs of Cracking

- Prices in the US, the world’s biggest gasoline market, plunged
- Refiners face lean gasoline profits while diesel stays healthy

A customer refuels at a Shell gas station in Hercules, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

One of the oil market’s most controversial data points of recent years — a measure of how much gasoline Americans consume — is pointing to a crash in demand that’s alarming traders the world over.

On Wednesday last week, the market’s most-watched measure for consumption of the fuel in the US tumbled to the lowest for the time of year in a quarter of a century. Since the summer’s peak, it points to a decline of 1 million barrels a day. New York-traded futures, the global benchmark, plunged by 6.9%, one of several catalysts for oil’s biggest one-day rout in a year that day.

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