A weekly survey of retail fuel stations across the U.S. says Americans did stay off the roads during the Thanksgiving holiday and did so in “overwhelming numbers.”
The survey by OPIS, an IHS Markit company found gasoline sales fell 8.4% from the previous week for the seven-day period that ended Nov. 28. As a result, gasoline consumption was at the lowest level for a Thanksgiving week going back 23 years to 1997.
The Midwest was off 23.3% versus last year, led by Illinois which saw a year-on-year deficit of 26%. Gasoline sales in the northeast dropped more than 10% while the smallest decline was in the Rockies were sales were down 5.6%.
New Jersey was the hardest hit state as sales dropped 30% compared to a year ago.
“This unprecedented drop in gasoline demand registers caution that has gripped the nation and led many people to avoid the traditional large family Thanksgiving dinner as the virus wave smashes across the country,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman, IHS Markit and author of The New Map. “We likely won’t see a turnaround until the wave breaks and the new vaccines are deployed.”
The OPIS survey tracks actual gallons moved out of retail stations and it features sharper losses than those reported by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). EIA measures movement of gasoline from primary stocks, while the OPIS survey tracks actual weekly sales at nearly 25,000 stations.
Source: BusinessWire