The resurgence of COVID-19 infections has delayed the total recovery in US oil product demand, analysts said. While domestic petroleum consumption has exceeded pre-pandemic levels, the recovery is uneven across sectors. Petroleum products supplied to domestic customers reached 20.1 million bpd in May, data from the US Energy Information Administration showed. That was just 300,000 bpd (1.4%) lower than the same month in 2019, before the pandemic, and was actually 200,000 bpd (1.1%) higher than the 2015-2019 average.
However, the strong demand growth mostly came from higher consumption of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs) by petrochemicals and other industries. HGL demand stood at 3.4 million bpd in May, up from 2.7 million bpd two years earlier. In contrast, demand for finished petroleum products was down from 17.5 million bpd two years ago to 16.5 million bpd in May. The 1 million bpd shortfall came from jet fuel (-0.5 million bpd), gasoline (-0.4 million bpd), and diesel (-0.2 million bpd).
Compared to May 2019, gasoline consumption was down by 4%, diesel was down by 6%, and jet fuel was still down by 26%. Since May, gasoline demand has continued to climb and is now less than 2% lower than two years ago. Hence, it is clear that long-haul passenger flights need to resume to complete the full recovery. However, governments are unlikely to lift the ban on international flights amid flare-ups of COVID-19 cases worldwide.
