Liam Denning, Columnist

There's a Lot of Gasoline, But Not Enough for Trump

Pump prices are stubbornly high just ahead of the midterms, despite a surge of fuel in storage.

October 17, 2018 at 11:12 AM EDT

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

This guy votes.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America

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Some good news for President Donald Trump ahead of the midterm elections: There is plenty of gasoline sitting around. Some bad news: Average pump prices are still almost $3 a gallon. Some worse news: Pump prices have more to do with Middle East intrigue than Midwest inventory.

Gasoline inventories have, unusually, been rising since the end of July. They now cover almost 26 days of U.S. demand, according to the Energy Information Administration, significantly higher than a year ago and even above the the top end of the range for this time of year:

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