Fuel Prices in The United States
U.S. petroleum consumption reached an estimated 18.87 million barrels per day in 2011, and is expected to increase to 18.96 million barrels per day in 2012. U.S. gasoline demand decreased to an average of 8.75 million barrels per day in 2011 (approximately 368 million gallons per day), or about 41 million fill-ups per day (based on a 9-gallon fill-up). Demand for 2012 is projected to continue to decline to 8.74 million barrels per day. Drivers in the United States traveled 8.105 billion miles per day in 2011, and are expected to travel 8.158 billion miles per day in 2012. This equates to an average of 33 miles per vehicle per day. On average, U.S. drivers consume 1.49 gallons of gasoline per day, or about 10.44 gallons per week.
In 2008, a report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates stated that 2007 had been the year of peak gasoline usage in the United States, and that record energy prices would cause an "enduring shift" in energy consumption practices. According to the report, in April fuel consumption had been lower than a year before for the sixth straight month, suggesting 2008 would be the first year US usage declined in 17 years. The total annual distance driven in the US began declining in 2006.
The average price in 2012 (as of December 31, 2012) was $3.618, the highest ever for a year. As of December 31, 2012, the average price of gasoline was $3.298, with New York at $3.70 for the highest in the U.S., and Colorado at $2.987 for the lowest.
Finished motor gasoline amounts to 44% of the total US consumption of petroleum products. This corresponds to 18.5 Exajoules per year. As of 2012 the cost of crude oil accounted for 62% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline in the United State while refining accounted for just 12%. Taxes and distribution/marketing accounted for 12% and 14% respectively.
Read more about this topic: Gasoline And Diesel Usage And Pricing
Famous quotes containing the words the united states, united states, fuel, prices, united and/or states:
“To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Beware the/easy griefs, that fool and fuel nothing./It is too easy to cry “AFRIKA!”/and shock thy street,/and purse thy mouth,/and go home to thy “Gunsmoke,” to/thy “Gilligan’s Island” and the NFL.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“United Fruit... United Thieves Company... it’s a monopoly ... if you won’t take their prices they let your limes rot on the wharf; it’s a monopoly. You boys are working for a bunch of thieves, but I know it ain’t your fault.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Emblem: the carapace of the great crowned snail is painted with all the flags of the United Nations.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)