When the Government of Felipe González put end to Campsa’s monopoly in 1992, there were just under 6,000 service stations in Spain. After three decades of almost uninterrupted growth – with very rare exceptions of slight annual setbacks during all this time, the last ones in 2005 and 2019 – they are now practically double.
At the end of 2021, at the gates of the price crisis that has taken fuel prices to record highs, there was 11,810 operational service stations on Spanish roadsa new historical maximum after adding 160 additional points of sale throughout the country in one year, according to the records of the latest annual report of the Association of Petroleum Operators (AOP), an employer group that brings together the large oil companies that are present in the Spanish market.
For years, the growth in the number of gas stations has been almost exclusively due to the opening of points of sale of new low-cost formats that are eating up ground on the large traditional networks in the hands of the oil companies. Independent retailers, stations linked to hypermarket and supermarket chains, automatic gas stations… These are the growing formats low cost that offer adjusted services and that in most cases seek to capture the market with discounts compared to traditional operators.
Last year, the alternative brands added 210 new service stations throughout the country, reaching 4,770 points and concentrating 40% of the national park of gas stations, while the group of large groups integrated into the AOP employers cut thirty stations, up to 6,149 gas stations. you teach how Ballenoil, Plenoil o Petroprix are some of the thriving networks in this expansion process.
Repsol and Cepsa reduce network
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Repsol stands out as the main national operator in terms of points of sale, with 3,313 installations, almost 28% of the national total, but twenty fewer than in 2020. Cepsa It closed the year with 1,473 service stations, 31 points less than in the previous year. BP closed the podium, with 784 centers, the only one of the big three’ that grew with a dozen new stations.
With a vehicle park of some 28 million units stagnant and barely growing; with larger gas stations, with more pumps and more hoses than in other European countries with more cars and greater purchasing power; and with a network that has practically doubled in three decades, the sector has been warning for years about the risk of saturation and sustainability of the business of each center.