Number of the Week: 41,235,700

Today's number of the week is how much gasoline the United States uses.

In May, 2011 refiners in the US delivered 41,235,700 gallons of gasoline per day. If expanded out to a year, that totals out to 15,051,030,500 (15 billion) gallons per year (These numbers are all from the Energy Information Agency).

What is most interesting here is that the United States is on track to use the least gasoline since the EIA began keeping track of these numbers in 1983. If you see the chart, you can see that gasoline use started to fall after 2003, then fell off a cliff with the oil price spike in 2008 and the ensuing recession. It has not come back.

Politico has an article today "Expiring gas tax may be next battle on the Hill" saying that the Tea Party may pick a fight over the extension of the 18.4 cent/gallon gas tax, slated to need re-authorization by September 30. The chart above, combined with the knowledge that the gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993 shows in graphic detail why our roads, rails, and bridges (funded with gas tax money) are crumbling.

Number of the Week: 60,000,000

30 days ago, on June 23, the IEA announced a release of oil from its member states' strategic petroleum reserves totaling sixty million barrels of crude. Most of it has been released - but some is still waiting to go to market.

The IEA's stated rationale for the release was to replace the loss of 1.5 mbd of production lost from the ongoing war in Libya.

With this week's 30 day review, the IEA has announced that it will not to release additional oil from reserves.

On June 23, prior to the release, the spot price of a barrel of WTI Crude was $95. The day after the announcement, it fell to $90. Today, WTI is trading above $99.