Driving, Oil Trends

Just read this blog post
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/04/23/where-is-the-bottom-americans-continue-to-drive-less-and-less/
which includes some very interesting statistics about avg miles driven per capital

This almost 10% decline since 2005 together with an approx 5% increase in the avg mpg 

 based on gov figures would argue that consumer transportation gasoline usage hs dropped by 15%.

The trend will continue to accelerate. From the same gov report MPG of new vehicles has grown since 2005 by 20% !!! (from 30mpg to 36 mpg) and that is 50% higher than the avg 22mpg against used+new vehicles.

So this aggregate 15% plus decline in total gasoline use by consumers was of course burried under the 70% increase of the gasoline prices during that same period.

My projection is that the trends of decreasing oil consumption for transportation (50% of all US oil consumption is consumer (ie gasoline) transportation ) will continue and acceletate. Price increases will not be able to balance this out which will mean that the oil sector, one of the most resilient never-dying dynosaur-dominated ( rockfeller/standard oil era companies ) will be hit hard this decade.

(Note that the stock market still doesn't believe so XOM stock price just surpassed its pre 2008 crisis price reaching an all time record - almost 50% more than its price in 2005. The big sisters amount to about $1.5Trillion market cap. 

(Russia's foreign-relationship activities...etc can be better understood through this lense)