The balance for the year 2022 in terms of the evolution of oil products in Spain published yesterday by the Spanish Association of Oil Product Operators (AOP) leaves some surprising data, taking into account the context in which the year unfolded.
One of them is that the evolution of consumption reached 57.7 million tons. In other words, it rose 8.1%, although it is still 3.5% below what was consumed in 2019, the last normalized year before the pandemic.
Last year’s increase contrasts with the potential contraction in fuel consumption that could be expected from the historically high prices that came to mark all raw materials after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and the sanctions against Russia that triggered supply problems .
The tension was of such magnitude that the Spanish Government, as did others in Europe, launched an aid policy to subsidize access to fuel with discounts of 20 cents per liter since April and which were maintained throughout the year, while the big oil companies took these discounts among their customers up to 30 cents in some cases.
In this proportion, gasoline increased its demand by 9.7% compared to 1.5% for automotive diesels. The latter continue to account for 55% of all petroleum products consumed in Spain.
The AOP report notes that the price of both products was “directly affected by international crude oil prices in the first half of the year and already refined products in the second.” It should be remembered that both gasoline and diesel marked all-time high prices in the month of June, reaching 2.13 euros per liter of gasoline and 2.09 per liter of diesel. And during more than a few days throughout the year the, until then, strange market situation occurred in which the price of diesel was above that of gasoline.
Historical prices that did not prevent gasoline from reaching the highest demand since 2009. The price escalation did not stop products more closely linked to labor activities such as fuel oils, which grew by 22.3%.
The other surprising piece of information from the AOP report is the increase in the number of low cost gas stations when in the spring these service stations repeatedly complained about the risk their permanence in business was running.
Specifically, the year 2022 closed in Spain with more than 12,000 gas stations in operation; 12,084 specifically. With high prices and more demand, the evolution seems logical. But, April and May were turbulent times in the sector. It was when, after the outbreak of the war or, rather, since the big oil companies first and then the Government applied discounts to fuel prices. The mandatory discount was 20 cents per liter.
The methodology chosen for its application was that of the service stations advancing the amount that would later be remunerated via liquidation of the Treasury. In that month of April and early May 2022, independent service station organizations and many of the low-cost brands raised a cry. They warned that the measure was going to imply the bankruptcy of many of them due to the financial impossibility of bringing forward the public discounts and of fighting against the additional price drop imposed by the large ones.
The tension even came to be formalized in the form of a complaint before the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), which had to verify whether these discounts were hindering competition. The regulator concluded no. The data known yesterday seems to confirm it. During 2022, 263 new service stations of this model opened, while those of the big brands, associated with the AOP, closed 6 stations. In the last decade, the number of service stations associated with major brands has fallen by 6%, to 6,143 points of sale.
Meanwhile, the service stations of brands not associated with the AOP, which in general tend to respond to the low cost business model, exceeded the 5,000 barrier. This places this model of gas station with a growth of 70% in the last decade and brings it closer in number to the points of sale of the big brands that in the same period of time fell by 6%.
