Stat of the Day: Gasoline demand down 9% YOY

Gasoline demand continues to plummett year over year according to Mastercard report. It seems that part of the destruction in demand could just be temporary as people spent the last couple of weeks sitting around watching the credit crsis and markets explode. Demand did pick up from the previous week. All in all, the national averages still haven't come down far enough to spark demand. As they approach $3 I'd expect a fair amount of pick up though still lower then last years levels. It'll be interesting to see how fuel efficiency plays into demand over the next couple of year. Would like to see a report that shows miles driven versus gas consumed.

Some highlights:

• Average national demand for gasoline dropped 9.7 percent compared with the same period last year, MasterCard said in its weekly SpendingPulse report.
• "This is the first time that we've had two consecutive weeks of pumping, in terms of year-over-year comparison, that were below 6 percent," McNamara said.
• American motorists pumped an average of 8.762 million barrels per day in the week that ended Oct. 10, up 1.6 percent from the previous week, the report said.
• the national average price for gasoline dipped 10 cents to $3.61 per gallon