US Gasoline consumption, Saudi crude output
Posted by WARREN MOSLER on February 23rd, 2011
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February 23rd, 2011 at 11:21 pm
The Saudis are gearing up production and distribution for the last month. That little blip you see at the end of the chart is an attempt to keep their heads on their shoulders.
SA put together a $350Bn (billion!) 5 year jobs program. At 20k a job, that is 3.5 million jobs for 5 years in a country of 25m people. It is just kicking in now. GDP per capita is only 23k, so you have to figure for most people a 10k job is great.
If you all are tracking any opec oil production go to this bloomberg chart and fiddle around with the url. You’ll find iran and iraq, then every other country no problem.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=OPCRSAUD:IND
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WARREN MOSLER Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 12:18 am
presumably only the saudis have excess capacity at this point
if indeed they don’t, they lose control of price on the upside
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February 24th, 2011 at 11:11 am
So with demand flat to declining are there a bunch of speculators waiting for a pump and dump once the Libyan chaos subsides? Assuming the Saudi’s do have excess capacity…
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February 24th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
The US demand for oil dropped from 20.5 million barrels a day to 18.6 million currently. As long as the economy in the US remains in the doldrums and the job market prospects keeps declining I suspect US oil consumption to remain flat if not drop some more. However, if the economy does pick up and people have extra disposable income, oil consumption will shoot thru the roof. And when that occurs there will be a price shock at the pumps because demand will outpace production creating shortages. So the cost of oil is dependent on demand so long as the output is capable of meeting the demand placed upon it. And that’s the big unknown.
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