--Year-on-year demand down for 41th straight week --Four-week demand hasn't topped year ago since March 2011 --Retail gasoline price -5 cents in week; -4.5% vs year ago By David Bird NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- U.S. gasoline demand fell 0.5% from a week earlier to an average of 8.967 million barrels a day in the week ended June 8, according to a SpendingPulse report released Tuesday by MasterCard Advisors LLC, a division of MasterCard Inc. (MA). Demand in the latest week was down 3.5%, from a year earlier. Gasoline use has lagged the year-ago level for 41 straight weeks. Four-week demand fell 1.9%, from a year ago, to 9.108 million barrels a day. Four-week gasoline use hasn't topped the year-ago level since March 18, 2011. Gasoline prices dropped five cents in the week to $3.58 a gallon, the lowest level since Feb. 17. Prices have dropped 36 cents in the last nine weeks, after having gained 71 cents a gallon in the prior 15 weeks. Prices are 4.5% below a year ago. John Gamel, SpendingPulse analyst, said year-to-date gasoline demand is down 4.8% from the same period in 2011. SpendingPulse is a macroeconomic indicator that reports on national retail sales and is based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments network, coupled with estimates for all other payment forms, including cash and check. SpendingPulse from MasterCard doesn't represent MasterCard financial performance. The Department of Energy is scheduled to release its weekly petroleum data, including gasoline demand, at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. The data, put out by the DOE's Energy Information Administration statistics and analysis unit, doesn't count how many gallons are sold. Instead, it offers a "product supplied," or implied demand figure, in its weekly report. Product supplied represents the total volume of gasoline that has moved on from refineries, pipelines, blending plants and terminals on its way to supplying retail stations. Write to David Bird at david.bird@dowjones.com
