Motorists bought an average 8.84 million barrels of gasoline a day in the week ended February 12, MasterCard, the second-biggest credit-card company, said in its report. Consumption was the lowest since Oct. 10, 2008, when supplies were limited by two Gulf Coast hurricanes and the U.S. economy was spiraling into the worst recession since the 1930[image-nocss] s.
"It's a combination of short-term and long-term factors" reducing demand, Sander Cohan, an analyst with Energy Security Analysis Inc., Wakefield, Mass., told the news agency. "Major snowstorms cutting off a part of the country that typically doesn't have snow is a major driver. This is typically the low point for gasoline demand. And, while we're coming out of an economic rut, we're not out of the woods yet," he said.
The Central Atlantic region, which includes New York and Pennsylvania, "suffered the largest and most noticeable week-over-week decrease" in demand with a decline of 16%, Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis for MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, said in a statement.
Back-to-back blizzards dumped almost 55 inches of snow in Washington last week, closing federal offices for four days. The Dallas-Fort Worth area set a 24-hour snowfall record in the period ended February 12 as winter storms threatened the Deep South and the Northeast was digging out from under a foot of snow.
Gasoline use fell 3.9% in New England, 1.1% in the Midwest, 1% on the West Coast and 0.9% on the Gulf Coast. The only gain was in the Lower Atlantic region, where demand rose 2.8%.
Demand fell 2.5% from the prior week and has dropped 6.1% in two weeks. Demand for the past four weeks was 9.18 million barrels a day, up 0.4% from a year earlier.
The national average pump price for regular gasoline fell 3 cents to $2.62 a gallon. Prices are 35% above a year earlier.
The report from Purchase, New York-based MasterCard is assembled by MasterCard Advisors, the company's consulting arm. The information is based on credit-card swipes and cash and check payments at about 140,000 U.S. gas stations. Visa Inc. is the biggest credit-card company by transactions processed, Bloomberg said.
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