Gasoline demand up for third week-MasterCard

NEW YORK, Dec 4 (Reuters) - U.S. retail gasoline demand rose last week for the third consecutive time, reflecting high gasoline consumption during the tail end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, MasterCard Advisors said Tuesday.

American motorists pumped 9.388 million barrels per day of gasoline, on average, in the week that ended Nov. 30, up 0.8 percent from the previous week, according to the weekly SpendingPulse report.

"This week's report includes the Sunday after Thanksgiving which tends to be a pretty heavy pumping day," said Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard Advisors.

Last week's retail gasoline buying was up 0.3 percent from the same time last year, the first time in five weeks that gasoline demand has been higher than year-ago levels.

Still, gasoline demand for the last two weeks, which reflected Thanksgiving holiday travel, shows that motorists pumped less gas over Thanksgiving than they did last year.

"If you combine the last two weeks, the country pumped about 922,000 barrels less than we did in the same two weeks in 2006," said McNamara. "Overall, we think a lot of it has to do with pricing pressures, with prices being 35 to 40 percent higher compared to the same time last year."

The four-week moving average for gasoline purchases of 9.321 million bpd slipped 0.8 percent from a year ago, according to the report.

U.S. retail gasoline prices were unchanged last week at $3.09 per gallon, but remained 83 cents higher than last year, according to the report.

MasterCard Advisors estimates retail gasoline demand based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments system coupled with estimates for all other payment forms. MasterCard Advisors is a unit of MasterCard Inc (MA.N).

The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its report on nationwide fuel inventories Wednesday morning and energy analysts are anticipating the report will show a build in gasoline stockpiles for the fourth week running due to increasing production and lower demand. [EIA/S] (Reporting by Rebekah Kebede; Editing by John Picinich)