Oil is at the lowest since the start of the Ukraine war today but that data that's weighing on crude has many market participants scratching their heads and some accusing the government of outright manipulation. In question is US gasoline demand. Official weekly data show that July US gasoline demand was below 2020 levels. {chart} Intuitively, that doesn't make sense. Yes, gasoline prices are much higher than 2020 but the world was in the midst of a pandemic and far more people were working from home in the summer of 2020. But the data is what it is and yesterday's numbers were soft once again at 8540k. That was the ... (full story)