Another Government Metric Looks Suspect: US Oil Demand

This is a most interesting story. Another government metric that is suspect. Who wudda thought?

It seems America is falling back in love with oil -- or at least that is what weekly numbers from the Energy Department show.

But oil demand is a slippery concept. The DOE's latest data show the US burned an average 20 million bbls a day in the four weeks ended November 115. That is up 7.4% year-over-year, a figure more redolent of China than America. It is the fastest pace of growth in oil demand since May, 2010, when the numbers were flattered by 2009's economic malaise. Gasoline demand, meanwhile, was up 3.9%, and growth in October was apparently running at levels higher still, and not seen since late 2006.

Thing is, those growth rates look wrong. And the gap appears to be growing.

The complete story is that the link. Very interesting. It has to do with increasing US exports of refined products to Europe.

U.S. refiners able to process cheap, landlocked domestic crude and export products such as gasoline have an incentive to ship as many barrels overseas as possible. While most U.S. product exports go elsewhere in the Americas, about a fifth head to Europe, according to Sanford C. Bernstein.

Of all sectors of the global oil industry, Europe's refiners are most exposed to the increase in U.S. exports, especially if the real level is understated in the data. Not only do Europe's refiners face weak demand at home and increasing competition from across the Atlantic. They also must deal with new export-oriented refineries opening in Asia and, later this decade, new Brazilian refineries to process that country's rising oil output.

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Connecting the dots. We all know that the president is picking and choosing to implement/delay the various pieces of ObamaCare of his choosing. It turns out that Iran will do the same thing with the "new" international agreement. From DrudgeReport: Iran will ignore/reject the "invalid" details of the "nuke" agreement. Ya gotta love it.