U.S. transportation sector gasoline & distillate fuel consumption 1992-2019

In 2019, the U.S. transportation sector consumed roughly three million barrels of distillate fuel oil daily. At the same time, this sector's daily demand for motor gasoline reached about nine million barrels.

Gasoline and fuel oil and diesel consumption in the U.S.

The transportation sector, which includes public and personal transportation by road vehicles, airplanes, trains and ships, is the second largest energy-consuming sector in the United States.

Distillate fuel can be used as either a fuel oil or a diesel fuel. The figures indicate that gasoline is still the most popular transportation fuel in the U.S., as consumption of this fuel is almost three-fold higher than fuel oil and diesel consumption. While gasoline is most commonly used in cars and motorcycles, diesel is the fuel of choice used in trucks and buses. Gasoline and fuel oil and diesel fuel consumption in the U.S. reached its peak in 2007, when the U.S. transportation sector consumed just over three million barrels of distillate fuel oil daily and over nine million barrels of finished motor gasoline per day.

Thanks to government incentives, annual biofuel consumption in the U.S. increased from around 260 million gallons in 2010 to almost two billion gallons in 2018. Texas, where biodiesel in blended fuel is exempt from the diesel fuel tax, is the U.S. federal state with the highest consumption of diesel and alternate fuels, but California, Pennsylvania and Ohio are not far behind.