Gas Price Elasticities

A meta-analysis of "the price elasticity of petrol":

Message to the Coalition: people respond to incentives, by Andrew Leigh: I was listening the other day to Tony Abbott claiming that the price elasticity of petrol is zero... It was perhaps the first time that I had heard a politician use the word ‘elasticity’... Anyhow, this struck me as the kind of issue that people have probably researched, and sure enough a quick search turned up a nice meta-analysis by Daniel Graham and Stephen Glaister. Here’s the key graph:

As the authors conclude:

There are differences between the short- and long-run elasticities of fuel consumption with respect to price. Typically, short-term elasticities are in the region of -0.3 and long-term between -0.6 and -0.8. Therefore, it may be right to say that ”it won’t make much difference” or ”people will use their cars just the same”, but only in the short run. The evidence is clear - and remarkably consistent over a wide range of studies in many countries - that in the long run there is a significant response, albeit a less than proportionate one.

In other words, a 10% rise in petrol prices reduces petrol demand by 3% in the short-term, and by 6-8% in the long-term. (Although the study isn’t clear on this point, I’m guessing short term is <1 year, and long term is >1 year.) ...

Comments

[Bupa]

Nice survey. Nice bibliography. Thanks Mark.

says...

I seem to remember an Econ prof at Cal saying that the definition of short, medium and long term for continuously consumed commodities such as oil (or milk, orange juice, paper...) boils down to 'months', 'seasons' and 'years'. The idea is that the elasticity of consumption over the short term depends heavily on not being able to change the consumption pattern. In the case of vehicle fuels, one still is compelled to 'go to the store', and tootle around not really thinking much of the cost of the fuel. At the middle-term, consumers DO think about modifying their plans season by season. They'll forego taking longer vacations, and will consolidate consumption with other activities. Measured on timescales greater than a year, consumer consumption takes on an inelastic 'permanent' shift, where the markedly changed cost of the resource compels research into alternatives that reoptimize the balance between resource cost and resource benefit.

Hence why the Chevy dealerships are full-up on MegaCars and Trucks ... with nary a consumer coming by to take a peek. Anecdotally, amongst our extended family's social circles, there is a feeling of resignation, and from that a push to retire all the old gas-hogs, and replace them with something whimpy-but-cheap to operate. That, coupled with the other issue: markedly decreased buying power of the Almighty Buck (relative to everything!) is leaving virtually everyone with a post-Internet Bubble economic headache.

Yet, interestingly ... real-world consumers also show that elasticity is not a single coefficient, but rather a 2nd order conjugate response system, that integrates lost short-term consumption to produce longer-term demand that doesn't 'fit the curve'. The problem of course is that such complex-math systems, while remarkably facile, also stray so far from 'the intuitive' that they're just outside of the range of gregarious intellectual discourse.

[a student of economics]

Why do you (and the meta analysis's authors) say the long run elasticity is -.6 to -.8 when the chart indicates that more than half of the original studies found a long run price elasticity in the range of -.8 to -1.3?

If the elasticity is -1, then we could double the price of oil yet, in the long run, spend no more on oil than we do today, since the quantity consumed would drop in half.

[ken melvin]

Before food, clothing, housing, ... you'll have to pry that steering wheel from the cold dead hands. Elsewhere - food, but here, in America, we'll probably have gasoline riots

[Sam]

If I remember rightly the paper also covers Income elasticities as well (I think they're roughly unitary) so, assuming real growth of 3% per year you'd need a 4% per year real increase in gas prices to keep consumption constant; implying that in the event of oil prices stabilising significant year on year increases in the gas tax will be required in order just to hold output at it's new/current long run level.

Which isn't so promising from an environmental perspective given the political environment.

[paine]

"a 10% rise in petrol prices reduces petrol demand by 3% in the short-term, and by 6-8% in the long-term. (Although the study isn’t clear on this point, I’m guessing short term is 1 year.) ..."

ummmmm

try that short term number
for a price double from 40 per b
to 80 perb
and you expect within a year 30% volume reduction

its amazing this is the level of public discussion
when the top five energy companies
made 500 billion dollars in profits
since the court appointed those two oil scags to the two top white house jobs
imagine what those off
the public books limited partnerships
that own a huge chunk of the wells of america made

price up 100%
quantity down 30%
have we seen anything like that since 04 ???

[paine]

sam

greens are not for oil conservation
thru administered
huge wind fall profits are they ????

for god's sake
tax the domestic wind fall away
pigou the pump price
but take solice in the high prices

you're funding
the green house monster

[paine]

"The problem of course is that such complex-math systems, while remarkably facile, also stray so far from 'the intuitive' that they're just outside of the range of gregarious intellectual discourse "

really ???

i'll agree
turning a weak comprehension
into gibberish does fall outside the GID zone
for sure for sure

[paine]

year zero start driving less
years zero through plus 8
a series of better mileage vehicle buys

grand theft auto ends in year plus nine
as fleet gets a fairly full recycle

then the oil price collapses again ....

says...

[Paine]... there's a problem with taxing the profit out of the domestic refined petroleum products market. The refineries ("downstream market") themselves are barely making a profit (and some are losing money copiously), whereas the exploration and extraction side (upstream) is doing just great.

Its counterintuitive, but the reason is that there are a mix of independent as well as all-encompassing refineries and refined product channels. The independent refineries are faced with supplies that range from market [$138/bbl] to futures to contracted-supplies at favorable rates. They are competing with refineries that are owned by the likes of Chevron and Union 76 (and so on), that don't necessarily pay the whole $138/bbl spot prices. Antitrust fear runs deep, so the obvious competitive advantage is modestly sidestepped by the Big Players. This just means that the profits accumulate in the big player's pockets.

I don't see an advantage in taxing them though: maybe a short-term increase in government corporate earnings could be realized, but in all probability the domestic super-sized oil companies would just post higher 'pump prices', which the independents would love, then the consumer would be in an even deeper pickle.

I mean, let's be realistic: in 2004, crude was floating around $35-$40 per bbl. Gasoline averaged $1.80 ... Today crude is pushing $140 (3.5x to 4x) Gasoline is up to $4.00 (2.2x). I'd say that the industry is doing a very good job trying to decouple crude-to-refined products costs. Normally, one might expect the refined product to be even higher... since the quality of the crude stream is also declining (requiring additional refining steps, additional raw materials beyond the proportionate expectation).

So, yah... they're making a lot of dough because by extraordinarily good planning, the Big Oil companies also both own and are deeply contracted to get oil out of the ground MUCH less expensively than the open/spot market. And so they're also an obvious profit-taxation plum. Unfortunately, to specifically tax them is just about the antithesis of open market capitalism. Maybe the PEOPLE are fed up with the high prices at the pump, but they might want to consider whether they're going to BAIL OUT all the refineries that are nearly going under due to the owned-versus-spot spread that's hitting them.

Where are the Greenie-types when we need them? I mean, shouldn't they be gloating at the high price of gasoline, AND angling to have even higher alternative-energy taxes ADDED to the cost of the gallon? Elasticity or not, we're eventually going to have to be sending a considerable fraction of every tankload of expense to OUR government instead of the plethora of MidEast kingdoms, so that we can do some lasting and hopefully patentable research into finding practible solutions to the imported-oil strategic issues.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/09gas.html?hp&pagewanted=print

June 9, 2008

Rural U.S. Takes Worst Hit as Gas Tops $4 Average
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

TCHULA, Miss. — Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the weekend, adding more strain to motorists across the country.

But the pain is not being felt uniformly. Across broad swaths of the South, Southwest and the upper Great Plains, the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans is putting an even tighter squeeze on family budgets.

Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes.

People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.

The disparity between rural America and the rest of the country is a matter of simple home economics. Nationwide, Americans are now spending about 4 percent of their take-home income on gasoline. By contrast, in some counties in the Mississippi Delta, that figure has surpassed 13 percent.

As a result, gasoline expenses are rivaling what families spend on food and housing.

"This crisis really impacts those who are at the economic margins of society, mostly in the rural areas and particularly parts of the Southeast," said Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at the Oil Price Information Service, a fuel analysis firm. "These are people who have to decide between food and transportation."

A survey by Mr. Rozell's firm late last month found that the gasoline crisis is taking the highest toll, as a percentage of income, on people in rural areas of the South, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota.

With the exception of rural Maine, the Northeast appears least affected by gasoline prices because people there make more money and drive shorter distances, or they take a bus or train to work.

But across Mississippi and the rural South, little public transit is available and people have no choice but to drive to work. Since jobs are scarce, commutes are frequently 20 miles or more. Many of the vehicles on the roads here are old rundown trucks, some getting 10 or fewer miles to the gallon.

The survey showed that of the 13 counties where people spent 13 percent or more of their family income on gasoline, 5 were located in Mississippi, 4 were in Alabama, 3 were in Kentucky and 1 was in West Virginia. While people here in Holmes County spent an average of 15.6 percent of their income on gasoline, people in Nassau County, N.Y., spent barely more than 2 percent, according to the survey.

Economists say that despite widespread concern about gasoline prices, the nationwide impact of the oil crisis has so far been gentler than during the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s, when shortages caused long lines at the pump, set off inflation and drove the economy into recession.

Americans on average now spend about 4 percent of their after-tax income on transportation fuels, according to Brian A. Bethune, an economist at Global Insight, a forecasting firm. That compares with 4.5 percent in early 1981, the highest point since World War II. At its lowest point, in 1998, that share dropped to 1.9 percent.

"Gas prices have doubled over the last year but the economy has not fallen off the cliff," said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University. "But for the rural lower income people, as a proportion of their income the rise of gas prices is very high."

While people everywhere are talking about gasoline prices these days, some folks in Tchula (the T is silent) have gone beyond talking.

Anthony Clark, a farm worker from Tchula, says he prays every night for lower gasoline prices. He recently decided not to fix his broken 1992 Chevrolet Astro van because he could not afford the fuel. Now he hires friends and family members to drive him around to buy food and medicine for his diabetic aunt, and his boss sends a van to pick him up for the 10-mile commute to work.

A trip from Tchula to the nearest sizable town about 15 minutes away can cost him $25 roundtrip — for the driving and the waiting. That is about 10 percent of what he makes in a week....

[Bupa]

I'm sure the spike in oil prices is difficult for many Americans.

However, in Hungary the average price per gallon is about $7.50. A few years ago, before the recent spike it was about $4.00 per gallon. Within a small spread, this is roughly true for all of Europe. In Hungary the GNI per capita in 2006 was $10,870 (world bank atlas methodology). In Croatia GNI per capita was $9,310. In Poland it was $8210.

In the US it was $44,710.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf

My guess is that if folks in Central Europe can survive with gas prices nearly twice as high and incomes one fourth as much as Americans, that the Americans will get by like the Central Europeans have. And I am quite sure the Americans will signficantly reduce their per capita carbon footprint along the way.

As paine says, better that high prices come from a tax than oil company profits but either way a change in American lifestyle would be welcome by the children of Bangladesh and Myanmar.

[paine]

"there's a problem with taxing the profit out of the domestic refined petroleum products market"

who needs to do that
hit the domestic well heads with a wp tax

[gordon]

So how are the not-rich going to pay for the expensive short-term fuel if they're not going to reduce consumption by as much as the price rises? Maybe if they eat less they'll be able to pay for fuel and solve the obesity and food-cost problems at the same time!

More seriously, it seems to me that the studies summarised by Graham and Glaister mostly don't take account of changes in regulation (like emissions requirements) which were happening at the same time as they were trying to measure pure price effects. This is particularly relevant to the larger reported long-term elasticities. Nobody seems to have controlled for regulation.

it's also interesting to note that the only study reviewed by G. & G. which looks at the cross-elasticity with mass transit costs comes up with an estimate of +0.39. This means (I think) that a 10 per cent increase in the price of fuel only leads to a 3.9 per cent increase in the use of mass transit. I presume this is a short-run effect, though G. & G. don't say.

Overall, a continuing rise in the price of fuel is going to cause a lot of short-run pain, and it will be borne by those least able to bear it.

[paine]

"to specifically tax them is just about the antithesis of open market capitalism "

exactly

full speed ahead high pigou prices
zero wind falls

anon is just informed and reasonable enough
to be a big oil flack

a righteous metaphor
trumps a partial truth
every time

[paine]

" in Hungary the average price per gallon is about $7.50 "

but that's got tax not just wind fall profit in it

we need to keep an eye on two balls here

price and profit

i'm all for high as hell prices green vs brown
knock yourself out

but tax oughta be the whole of it
above replace ment cost
not rent

[paine]

talk about moral

hazard
let these engery corporations get away
with hundreds of billions in war profits
by this this oil region war's
price soar shit

and they'll keep it up
or do it again or both

perpetual war or near war in the gulf

its good for exxon
and what's good for exxon is good for america

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/business/10planting.html?hp&pagewanted=print

June 10, 2008

Worries Mount as Farmers Push for Big Harvest
By DAVID STREITFELD and KEITH BRADSHER

As the world clamors for more corn, wheat, soybeans and rice, farmers are trying to meet the challenge. But evidence suggests harvests will be average at best.

[anne]

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72_data.htm#table13

World Grain Yield Annual Increase by Decade, 1950-2007

1950-1960 2.0%
1960-1970 2.5
1970-1980 1.9
1980-1990 2.1
1990-2000 1.2
2000-2007 1.2 *

* Annual increase over eight years.

Note: Grain yields for 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 calculated using 3 year averages.

[anne]

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72.htm

April 16, 2008

World Facing Huge New Challenge on Food Front: Business-as-Usual Not a Viable Option
By Lester R. Brown

Meanwhile, the backlog of agricultural technology that can be used to raise cropland productivity is dwindling. Between 1950 and 1990 the world's farmers raised grainland productivity by 2.1 percent a year, but from 1990 until 2007 this growth rate slowed to 1.2 percent a year. And the rising price of oil is boosting the costs of both food production and transport while at the same time making it more profitable to convert grain into fuel for cars.

[anne]

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72_data.htm#table14

U.S. Fuel Ethanol Use, Grain Production

1980-2007 (Million Tons)

1980 1 of 268
1985 7 of 345
1990 9 of 310
1995 10 of 275
1999 14 of 332

2000 16 of 340
2001 18 of 321
2002 25 of 294
2003 30 of 345
2004 34 of 386

2005 41 of 363
2006 54 of 336
2007 81 of 414

2008 114 of 400 Projection

[Lord]

Soon gas stations will have to replace prices with make me an offer signs.

[cm]

Where I live most stations (that take credit cards) have Regular in the mid 4.40's -- I should add "as of last hour". I saw one station at 4.559 (Premium 4.799). If memory serves, in early May Regular was just under $4.

[Dickeylee]

So just how much gas and diesel is being used in our "War" effort? How much? Planes and ships to ferry troops and supplies, daily patrols, etc...So how much? And my understanding is that we're paying twice what an Iraqi pays locally in theater, Halliburton contract stipulation's dictate it.

[Dickeylee]

ABC National news broadcast 6/9/2008, US Air Force consumes 10% of all jet fuel refined in the United States. So just how much gasoline and diesel are the remaining services using? A 10% increase in supplies across the board would go a LONG ways towards driving the price back down, wouldn't it?

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dearest Mark . . .

This analysis is almost humorous to me.
”it won’t make much difference” or ”people will use their cars just the same," but only in the short run. The evidence is clear - and remarkably consistent over a wide range of studies in many countries - that in the long run there is a significant response, albeit a less than proportionate one.
In the early 1970s, people waited in gas lines for hours on end. Late in the decade, schedules were devised. Those with odd plates could purchase fuel on certain days of the week. People who held even numbers were able to buy gas when the others could not. While in turmoil, people turned to small, more fuel-efficient vehicles. After each energy crisis, gas-guzzlers reappeared. Indeed, now the road hogs are bigger than they ever were.

I invite your thoughts on an alternative perspective. Americans of every political persuasion may wish to consider the role they play when they pay at the pump. The dollars spent on petroleum are perhaps more important to the people than what a dependency on fossil fuels means to the planet.

Citizens in this country quietly complain about global warning. However, if the price of gas rises, they shriek.

Congress, the President, or any of many candidates who race towards Washington District of Columbia know, few constituents wish to leave the luxury vehicle behind. If the fee for fuel is reasonable, Americans are happy. Climate change, while a crisis, is the issue that will likely never be authentically addressed. People do not wish to alter their comfy cozy lives. Thus, the message is one of appeasement . . .
"Let Them Eat Oil"

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org

[Conrad Sansbury]

We reduced our dependence on foreign oil after punitive OPEC actions in the 70s. But then we couldn't bring ourselves to increase gas taxes like the Europeans. With a new set of middle east risks, aren't we back where we started? Isn't there something wrong with having to learn these lessons twice?

[donna]

Yes, Conrad -- it's called Republicans.

[mikx]

Yes, Conrad -- it's called Republicans.

A beautiful example of unity and bi-partisanship.
Bringing us all together.
My heart is all warm.

But I thought that Dems occupied White House 12 years since 1973 embargo and had majorities in Congress most of that time.

Refresh my memory, what exactly Dems did do to divorce US from Middle East oil?

And no, prohibiting nuke power and drilling in many promising areas do not count as energy independence policies.

[reason]

I see two real lessons here:
1. That producers can increase their income by restricting supply (assuming they have market power - paine where are the new supplies going to come from. The US is a big consumer, but its share in global consumption is falling.)
2. That politicians should check their facts (or be forced to) before they make factual statements. Democracy won't work if we don't inhabit a well understood common world. The war on science is a war on democracy.

[anne]

"So just how much gas and diesel is being used in our "War" effort?"

The Air Force alone accounts for 10% of our total gasoline use.

[anne]

"Refresh my memory, what exactly Dems did do to divorce US from Middle East oil?

"And no, prohibiting nuke power and drilling in many promising areas do not count as energy independence policies."

Rubbish. as always.

[paine]

The Air Force alone accounts for 10% of our total gasoline use

where did that number fall out of

do you mean the kind of fuel planes need
or all fuel ????

[piglet]

"where did that number fall out of"

"ABC National news broadcast 6/9/2008, US Air Force consumes 10% of all jet fuel refined in the United States."

[David Merkel]

The paper does define what it means by short and long-term. Short term is a year, long -term is 2-10 years.

Nice post.

[anne]

Thank you, Piglet for correcting my omission.

"The Air Force alone accounts for 10% of our total [aircraft] gasoline use."

What I would like to know is the extent of military fuel use in detail, but this is all I could find and that simply because I happened to be told the Air Force is concerned about fuel cost and possibly future supply.

[Dickeylee]

The Air force consumes 10% of all jet fuel refined in the US. What percent of total refinery capacity/crude oil is used on jet fuel I don't know, but folks, that's just the Air Force. the Marines and Navy have planes that use jet fuel also, maybe another 5-7% of the total? that brings us up to 15% give or take of total refinery capacity of jet fuel. Then how many Navy vessels are not nuclear powered? Most of the support vessels in a fleet are still on diesel? And the Army, the tanks run on diesel, and the supply fleet (logistics) uses both gas and diesel. Helicopters use high octane gas, and the Army, Navy, and Marines all have helicopters. And every base has fleets (read thousands) of support vehicles, generators, portable welders, etc...So just how much of our total refinery capacity goes towards our military? 20%? 30%? HOW MUCH? this war is costing us ALL plenty folks, might be the ruin of our economy, for a "crusade" by our good Christian leader. Think about it.

[Bupa]

paine, whining about Exxon. I was whining with you til I noticed that Gazprom is coming.

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1213111022.74

In France on Tuesday Alexei Miller, head of Russian energy giant Gazprom, warned that the price of oil is likely to hit 250 dollars a barrel, without indicating when that might happen.

and from today's FT

Gazprom targets growth in US
By Ed Crooks in London and James Politi in Washington

Published: June 10 2008 03:00 | Last updated: June 10 2008 03:00

Gazprom is looking to make its first acquisition in the US as part of its move to enter the North American market.

Vitaly Vasiliev, chief executive of Gazprom Marketing & Trading, the downstream arm of the state-controlled Russian gas company, told the Financial Times a takeover was one of the options under consideration for building Gazprom's presence in the US market, where it hopes to sell increasing volumes of liquefied natural gas.

[rana]

I would assume that short-run elasticities are for several years at least. It takes time to change the capital stock in response to the higher prices. In the U.S. the short run elasticity now appears to be around -0.1 or maybe even less elastic in recent years. As noted above, there has been an enormous increase in prices and only a small drop-off in consumption. Also note that the longer-run response seems not as large as expected. My evidence, while there has been a shift toward more fuel efficient cars and trucks, the shift has been small relative to the change in price. In short, while the press is into stories about people responding to higher prices, what has been striking is that the response is so small. There is good evidence that the response is smaller this time than it was historically. CBO released a study in January that showed how small the response has been, although they were not spinning it that way.

[piglet]

"In short, while the press is into stories about people responding to higher prices, what has been striking is that the response is so small."

True, but as a matter of fact, gas simply was dirt cheap until very recently. Let's face it, at 1 to 2$ a gallon, people hardly noticed they were paying for gas at all! Yes even at 3$ a gallon, it was still dirt cheap and despite much complaining, it didn't hurt most people. That explains why SUVs were still booming even when prices started going up after 2000. Adjusted for inflation, prices have just begun to rise above historical levels. 4$ a gallon seems to have hit a threshold that starts changing the psychology. Expect a singificant response as the price exceeds 4$. And yes, that response will take years to develop in this case. The concept of price elasticity doesn't apply to oil the way it does to orange juice. Day-to-day individual choices won't make much of a difference, the response depends on long-term choices (which car to buy, where to live) and critical infrastructure decisions that will take years to have an effect.

And since this is a political issue, there is no guarantee that rational long-term decisions will be made. (One reason why these decisions have not been made in the past couple years is the irrational expectation of most people that rising energy prices are an aberration that will soon disappear). Maybe "elasticity" is just the wrong word. Maybe we are witnessing an irrational, rigid, system about to break.

[Thomas T. Schweitzer]

The undersigned 84 year old geezer has an overwhelming feeling of "deja vu". In 1975 I contributed to the Economic Council Of Canada's publication CANDIDE MODEL 1.1 Project Paper No. 18 the analysis of Disaggregated Consumer Expenditure. Based on the Canadian National Accounts data I estimated the short term price elasticity of Gasoline, Oil, and Grease consumptionas -0.16 and the long-term elasticity as -0.79. I used the Houthaker-Taylor model. If I remember right, their corresponding findings for the USA were of a smilar order of magnitude. This all is very, very old hat.

[Thomas T. Schweitzer]

Observe that both the Houthaker-Taylor results and mine were based on long time series which did not include the various oil crises of the 1970 - 2008 period! Yet they seem to stand up pretty well after four decades!

[Jay]

Based on this data and comparing to what we see in the US over the last few years. It would imply that the 100% increase in gas prices over the last 1 year will lead to a short term i.e less than 1 yr 30% reduction in demand. But demand is forecast to go down only 2% this year as compared to last year despite a doubling of prices. And long term this data would suggest a 60-70% reduction in demand. Small price rises may allow correlation like this, but the 100% price increase over the last 12 months this correlation will probably not apply. With rapidly rising prices demand is inelastic.

[cm]

piglet: $4? Here in the SF Bay Area, I think we have already broached $5 in places, at least on Premium and Diesel. In my area Regular averages about $4.50, but by talking to people that seems to be relatively "cheap".

[piglet]

cm: the national average just recently crossed the 4$ line.

Here's a Dow Jones Newswires report: "Energy Costs Are Forcing Households To Cut Back, Survey Finds"

"Sales of more efficient energy systems and appliances are getting a boost from higher energy prices, according to survey respondents. The purchase of a more efficient air conditioner was reported by 15%, followed by 14% that said they bought a more efficient heating system, and 28% that reported they bought a more efficient appliance."

These figures - 15% new heating/cooling systems - look high to me. If they are credible, there should be a significant impact on electricity demand.

[piglet]

German gasoline consumption plunged by 7.7% in May compared to one year ago. Diesel dropped 4.7%.

Gasoline was on average 1.472 EUR/L in May, 7% up from 1.375 last May.

[piglet]

Multiply by about 5.9 to get dollar per gallon value.