On May 20, 2024, the Monday before Memorial Day, the retail price of regular gasoline averaged $3.58 per gallon (gal) across the United States, 1% higher than at the same time last year. After adjusting for inflation (real terms), average U.S. retail gasoline prices going into Memorial Day weekend are 2% lower than last year. The American Automobile Association (AAA) projects 38.4 million people will travel by car over Memorial Day weekend, an increase of 4% compared with last year and nearly 2% more than in 2019.
Read More ›Tags: prices, gasoline, crude oil, oil/petroleum
Meteorologists are forecasting a particularly intense Atlantic hurricane season this year; they expect 20–25 named storms with a possibility of 30 or more, according to reports from AccuWeather in April. Colorado State University similarly forecasts an estimated 23 named storms this year. The potential for a stronger hurricane season suggests heightened risk for weather-related production outages in the U.S. oil and natural gas industry.
Read More ›Tags: natural gas, refineries, weather, Gulf Coast, outages, Texas, liquid fuels, states, Mississippi, map, Louisiana, crude oil, Florida, oil/petroleum, Alabama
Guyana, situated on South America's northern coast neighboring Venezuela, Suriname, and Brazil, has emerged as a significant contributor to growth in the global supply of crude oil. Since starting production in 2019, Guyana has increased its crude oil production to 645,000 barrels per day (b/d) as of early 2024, all from the Stabroek block.
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Light-duty vehicles (LDV) in the United States used more electricity than rail systems for the first time in 2023, according to new estimates in our Electric Power Monthly. We recently started publishing experimental estimates for LDV electricity consumption, which are not collected on our traditional surveys but are derived using a model. We compared these estimates with consumption data from electric utilities that report transportation sector end use, which is almost only municipal and regional rail systems.
Read More ›Tags: consumption/demand, electricity, rail, vehicles
The electric power grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) recorded an all-time high for winter natural gas-fired electricity generation for an hour in January, according to our Hourly Electric Grid Monitor, when a three-day cold snap increased electricity demand. Hourly natural gas-fired electricity generation increased to 49.4 gigawatts (GW) for the hour starting at 7:00 p.m. central time on January 16, 2024, 1% more than the previous winter record of 48.8 GW set on December 23, 2022, and within 4% of the summer hourly high of 51.2 GW set between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on August 25, 2023.
Read More ›Tags: generation, electricity, natural gas, weather, Texas, states
Average monthly prices for regular-grade retail gasoline in the United States could increase by more than 10 cents per gallon (gal) if refinery output is lower than expected, according to an analysis we published on May 14.
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The share of electric and hybrid vehicle sales in the United States decreased in the first quarter of 2024 as battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales declined. Hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and BEVs fell to 18.0% of total new light-duty vehicle (LDV) sales in the United States in the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24) from 18.8% in 4Q23, according to estimates from Wards Intelligence.
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In 2023, Brazil and Saudi Arabia replaced France and Germany as the countries with the second- and third-most seaborne diesel imports from Russia after sanctions related to Russia’s petroleum product trade went into effect in February 2023. Türkiye was Russia’s largest seaborne diesel importer in both 2022 and 2023.
Read More ›Tags: international, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, exports/imports, diesel, Russia
Electricity generation from units that primarily consume coal in the U.S. Lower 48 states decreased for all hours of the day by about 23% between 2021 and 2023, according to our Form EIA-930, Hourly and Daily Balancing Authority Operations Report. Most of the decline occurred between 2022 and 2023, when coal-fired generation fell 19% and the average natural gas spot price at the Henry Hub decreased by more than 60%.
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U.S. wholesale and retail propane prices were slightly lower on average this winter than last winter, largely because of mild weather and robust propane inventories heading into this winter heating season. Despite lower prices and lagging domestic demand, however, continuing international demand for U.S. propane contributed to large withdrawals and left end-of-winter propane inventories below last winter’s year-end levels.
Read More ›Tags: prices, weather, Texas, wholesale prices, propane, states, inventories/stocks
The U.S. electric power sector reported fewer delays to install new utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in 2023 than in 2022. In 2023, solar developers pushed back the scheduled online date for an average of 19% of planned solar capacity compared with an average of 23% in 2022. Although the share of solar capacity reporting delays fell in 2023, it was still higher than the average share of delays between 2018 and 2021.
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U.S. West Coast refiners are using more hydrogen purchased from merchant suppliers than from their own production. From 2012 to 2022, hydrogen purchased by refiners in the region increased 29% to about 550 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). Over the same period, on-site refinery-produced hydrogen production from natural gas fell 20% to about 330 MMcf/d. Merchant suppliers accounted for more than 62% of the hydrogen consumed by West Coast refineries in 2022.
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In the past 10 years, more than 34 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power capacity were added in China, bringing the country’s number of operating nuclear reactors to 55 with a total net capacity of 53.2 GW as of April 2024. An additional 23 reactors are under construction in China. The United States has the largest nuclear fleet, with 94 reactors, but it took nearly 40 years to add the same nuclear power capacity as China added in 10 years.
Read More ›Tags: nuclear, generation, electricity, China, map, CAB (Country Analysis Brief), capacity
In the first part of our two-part series on Japan’s energy policies in the electric power sector, we examined policies affecting generation from non-fossil fuel sources, namely renewable sources and nuclear generation.
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Over the last several years, the Japanese government has announced energy policies aimed to achieve carbon neutrality, or net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by 2050 by lowering emissions in the electric power, industrial, and transportation sectors. In the electric power sector, government policies set 2030 targets, which include accelerated investment in renewable capacity, increased use of nuclear generation, and reduced use of fossil fuels for electricity generation. Japan’s government called the package of energy policies and their targets “ambitious.” Energy security considerations may affect the progress and pace of decarbonization in the electric power sector.
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