U.S. Consumer Oil Demand Has Exceeded Expectations

Earlier in the year, Wall Street was mostly bearish about the U.S. economic outlook with many warning of a looming recession. Not surprisingly, many oil punters expected oil demand to crash as unemployment rose and companies cut output thanks to aggregate demand falling. Luckily, these predictions have turned out to be dead wrong. So far, the economy has proven to be remarkably resilient, managing to expand at a respectable annual clip of 2.4% in the second quarter after growing 2% in the first quarter. The unemployment rate currently stands at…