U.S. Gasoline Prices Weaken To 2009 Low

Gasoline prices continued to decline last week and reached a nine year low. The pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to an average $1.82 (-11.9% y/y), down from $1.86 in the prior week, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The price compares to a 2014 high of $3.71 per gallon. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in pump prices, and the adjusted price fell to $2.07 per gallon. The spot market gasoline price fell to $1.05 per gallon (-22.5% y/y) as of last week.

WTI crude oil costs rose slightly and averaged $31.80 per barrel last week (-29.8% y/y). Yesterday's price of $31.62 was down from Friday's high of $33.62, and remained below the peak of $113.93 in April 2011. Brent crude oil prices also rose w/w to $33.22 per barrel versus the prior week's low of $29.37. Yesterday's price of $34.12 was down from Friday's high of $35.83.

Natural gas prices held steady last week at $2.20 per mmbtu (-23.4% y/y). Prices were $2.18 yesterday.

Gasoline demand declined 2.5% y/y last week and demand for all petroleum products fell 1.7% y/y. Gasoline inventories improved 4.2% y/y, while inventories of all petroleum products rose 9.1% y/y. Crude oil production (input to refineries) increased 3.8% y/y during the last four weeks.

The energy price data are reported by the U.S. Department of Energy. The petroleum demand and inventory figures are from the Oil & Gas Journal Weekly. These data can be found in Haver's WEEKLY database. The daily figures are in DAILY and greater detail on prices, demand and production, along with regional breakdowns, are in OILWKLY.

Records were meant to be broken, and total sales of light vehicles in 2015 did just that. Rising to 17.42 million units, they just beat the old record of 17.40 million reached in 2000, as gasoline prices and interest rates fell. The feat occurred despite a 4.6% m/m decline in December sales to 17.34 million (SAAR) from 18.19 million during November. It was the lowest level in six months. Nevertheless, sales rose 2.5% versus December 2014, pulling the full-year average up 5.4% against 2014. These gains were, however, the smallest of the economic expansion.

Sales of light trucks set the pace in 2015 with a 12.7% full-year increase to a record 9.69 million units. Their 55.7% share of total vehicle purchases also was a new record. The gain was led by a 25.3% surge in imported light truck sales to 1.37 million units, just off the 2007 record of 1.47 million. Not to be outdone, the 10.8% increase in sales of domestically produced light trucks pulled them to a record 8.33 million. During December, sales of imported light trucks fell 3.2% to 1.59 million. Nevertheless, they were 45.9% higher than December 2014. Sales of domestically produced light trucks fell 4.4% last month to 8.34 million (+8.1% y/y).

Passenger car sales during all of 2015 declined 2.5% to 7.72 million units, leaving them well below the 1990 high of 9.30 million. Sales of U.S. made cars eased 0.8% to 5.63 million while sales of imports fell 6.7% to 2.09 million. For December, passenger car sales declined 5.2% from November to 7.40 million (-8.7% y/y). Sales of domestically made cars fell 3.4% to 5.51 million (-5.5% y/y) while sales of imported cars were off 10.1% to 1.89 million (-17.0% y/y).

Imports share of the light vehicle market eased slightly y/y to 19.8% last year. That was, however, well below the 27.6% peak reached in 2009. During December, their share was 20.1%. Imports share of the car market came to 27.1% last year and 25.5% in December. Imports share of the light truck market totaled 14.1% in 2005 and 16.0% during December.

U.S. vehicle sales figures are published by Autodata and can be found in Haver's USECON database.