America’s Season for Peak Fuel Demand Starts Off With a Whimper
- Gasoline use over Memorial Day weekend slips from week earlier
- Consumers may have shied away from traveling long distances
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For all the optimism over a recovery in oil demand and prices, the weekend that heralds the U.S. summer driving season proved to be a damp squib.
While beaches were open and states across the country emerged from coronavirus-related lockdowns, demand for gasoline ended up falling over the Memorial Day weekend. That may have been because people kept their driving local, when in previous years they had traveled farther, according to Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston.