California sees huge downturn in diesel demand

摘要

If California is a bellwether state for the rest of the U.S., diesel marketers are in trouble.rnData released this week shows a large slide in diesel demand in January over year-ago sales, but a more modest mid-winter slump for gasoline.rnNumbers released by the state Board of Equalization suggest that California companies sold 197.3 million gallons of diesel in January, down 37.4 million gallons from the January 2008 total of 234.7 million gallons. The slide of 15.9% is much more severe than anything represented in nationwide data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) at the time. While EIA doesn't track specific demand for ULSD, grouping it in the "distillate" category, its four-week snapshot for the period ending Jan. 30, 2009 showed a nationwide distillate demand drop of just 3.4%.