Motorists bought 9.25 million barrels of gasoline a day in the week ended Friday, the lowest in five weeks, MasterCard said in its SpendingPulse report. Consumption was down 3.3% from the previous week, the biggest decline since July 10, according to the report.
Consumption fell 7.6% in New England and 8.4% in the central-Atlantic region "[image-nocss] due to the snowstorm the previous weekend." Those regions posted gains the previous week as the storm approached, the newspaper reported.
Consumption was up 1.3% from a year earlier, when the U.S. financial crisis and the rising jobless rate reduced demand. Average demand for the four weeks ended Friday was 9.39 million barrels a day, up 1.6% from a year earlier.
The national average pump price for regular gasoline was unchanged at $2.58 a gallon, 56% more than a year earlier. Fuel peaked this year at $2.68 in the week ended Oct. 30, the report stated.
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