What are ghost gas stations and why are they gaining ground over traditional ones?

Low cost gas stations are here to stay. Since the government headed by Mariano Rajoy decreed the liberalization of the hydrocarbons market in Spain in 2013, the opening of new service stations has been a constant in our country. The entry of new operators, generally through automatic service stations, has managed to stoke competition between banners and lower fuel prices for the benefit of users.

Automatic gas stations, also known as ghost service stations because they work without employees, are gaining ground in Spain. The pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis have fueled the growth of this type of establishment in our country. Throughout the Peninsula, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands there are more than 1,990 distribution points.

Since March 2020, the number of automatic gas stations has increased by 49% and now account for 18.3% of the Spanish market, four points more than in March 2021. The figures, provided by the National Association of Automatic Service Stations (Aesae), with data provided by the Geoportal of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, confirm the success of a model that increasingly has more users.

“The key to offering cheaper fuel than traditional gas stations is to reduce costs as much as possible. We buy the gasoline and diesel that we have at our service stations at the same price as the other operators. So the only secret there is to sell cheaper than the competition is to reduce costs”, explains Manuel Jiménez Perona, president of Aesae.

The head of the employers’ association of low-cost gas stations comments that when traditional gas stations changed the way they operate and implemented a self-service system that we find today in practically all establishments, the price of fuel remained the same. On the other hand, automatic service stations transfer these advantages to the consumer so that they pay less for the same product. “That is why they are cheaper than the others, there is no two ways about it,” says the leader of Aesae.

With regard to the quality of the fuels, Jiménez stresses once again that both gasoline and diesel for retail sale in Spain go through the same controls and filters. “For the most part, the fuel comes from the Exolum plants, the former CLH, and is added with the products HQ300 (diesel) and HQ400 (gasoline) to take care of the vehicle’s engine.” This process guarantees that the fuel has a minimum quality, although then the different oil chains are responsible for adding other types of additives.

In no case are the fuels that come out of the ‘low cost’ gas station pumps harmful to vehicle engines. In this sense, it is worth remembering that the Spanish Confederation of Automobile and Related Repair Workshops (Cetraa) retracted the statements made by a member of its executive committee in which he warned that the consumption of cheap fuels increased the long-term risk of having an engine failure.

The latest study on automatic service stations in Spain prepared by Aesae confirms that this type of service station grows heterogeneously in our country. Catalonia is the community with the largest number of low cost service stations, with 31.4% of the total, followed by the Valencian Community (24.5%) and Madrid (21.29%).

The rest of the autonomous communities are below the national average. The Canary Islands (4.5%), Navarra (9%) and the Basque Country (11.6%) are the regions with the lowest penetration of automatic petrol stations.

Refueling at ‘low cost’ gas stations can mean savings of between 320 and 340 euros per year, according to a study by the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) published in 2018. “For families with a budget of up to 30,000 euros this represents a one and peak percent annual savings. This is one of the few items in the family budget that is in the hands of the consumer, because there are very few concepts that depend solely on their purchase decision”, remarks Jiménez Perona.

The employer of the ‘low cost’ gas stations ensures that the average price difference between automatic and traditional gas stations grew to 15 cents during Easter after the end of the discounts provided by the big oil companies. The Aesae came to this conclusion after analyzing the prices published on the Gas Station Geoportal of the Ministry for Ecological Transition.

The average difference in the price of 95 gasoline between these two types of service stations reached 19 cents per liter in Navarra, the community with the greatest oscillation. According to this analysis, the greatest savings in diesel occurred in the Basque Country with a difference of up to 18 cents.

Curiously, it is in these two regions where automatic service stations have a lower implementation than in other communities. “The price difference is very high due to the lack of competition that traditional stations have,” says Manuel Jiménez.