Wright Express Corporation, in collaboration with IHS, today released results of its Wright Express Construction Fuel Consumption Index (FCI), which indicated a decrease of 0.6% in February versus its level the previous year.
The Wright Express Construction FCI measures national fuel consumption statistics for the construction industry, providing an indication of construction activity in the United States. The construction segment comprises approximately 20% of the Wright Express portfolio of customers.
Wright Express worked with IHS to capture and analyze transaction data from its closed loop network of more than 180,000 fuel and vehicle maintenance locations, including over 90 percent of the domestic retail fuel locations and 45,000 vehicle maintenance locations. With this data, the Wright Express Construction FCI can be used to identify emerging trends within the construction industry and the national economy.
The indicators were tested at monthly, quarterly, and annual frequencies, with the greatest insights produced using the year-over-year percent change of the monthly data. For February 2012, the Wright Express Construction FCI reported that fuel consumption by U.S. construction companies decreased by 0.6% versus February 2011 and increased by 1.1% versus the previous month.
“The analysis of the February 2011 FCI data has been mixed for the construction industry,” said Michael Dubyak, chairman and chief executive officer of Wright Express. “The 1.1% increase in fuel consumption in February 2012 is a nice rebound from the previous month; however in January 2012 total construction put-in-place declined 0.1%, with construction spending excluding improvements falling 0.3%.”
The Wright Express Construction FCI, which is available monthly in advance of the U.S. Census Bureau figures on construction spending, is available at www.wrightexpress.com/fci.
