CALGARY, Alberta -- As of Dec. 31, 2006, there were 13,772, retail gas stations operating in Canada, 4.2 outlets for every 10,000 persons, according to the 2006 National Retail Petroleum Site Census, researched and published by MJ Ervin & Associates Inc., Calgary Alberta.
Although the surveyed number of stations is higher than other previous surveys have estimated, said the report, its assessment of the outlet population trend does not differ from others, which show that the number of outlets has declined by a relatively steady 2% per year since [image-nocss] about 1989.
Per capita number of outlets varies significantly from one province to another; and this has a strong relationship to "throughput efficiency" by province, which in turn has significant implications with the level of price-competitiveness in that province's markets. Provinces or markets with poor (low) throughput efficiencies tend to have higher retail gasoline prices (after tax differences are factored out) than those with high throughput efficiencies.
The census illustrates a continued diversity of brands of gasoline in Canada (it measured 98 different brands), although the physical product largely originates from 16 refineries in Canada, operated by a total of 10 refining organizations. Similarly, it identified 66 companies involved in the marketing of gasoline, where they manage a network of two or more stations.
About 7,300 individual outlet operators directly control the price at the pumpin effect, they market their own gasoline (through their own control of the pump price) under the banner of their own brand of gasoline or under the banner of a third-party brand owner and supplier.
Some 16% of all stations come under the price control of one of the three "major" oil companies (Petro-Canada, Esso or Shell); 29% of all stations come under the price control of one of the nine refiner-marketers in Canada. The remaining 71% of all stations in Canada are price-controlled by individual outlet proprietors or nonrefiner marketers, a diverse genre of petroleum marketers, whose importance and influence is growing, particularly among two sub-types: regional distributors and big box marketers. The latter in particular have an influence on the retail petroleum marketparticularly in terms of price competitivenessthat is far out of proportion to their relatively small numbers of outlets.
MJ Ervin & Associates also measured the market representation of a number of site features and offerings: the type of pump service (full, self or dual), convenience store size, car washes, fast food, automotive service and to what degree ethanol-blended gasoline or diesel fuel is offered for sale. The provision of goods or services other than gasoline is of vital importance to the competitiveness and viability of retail gasoline outlets, since (based on other research) the gross margin on gasoline itself is generally not sufficient to provide for the operating costs and reasonable return on the operation of these facilities.
Although the more populous provinces would be expected to have a higher total number of retail outlets than the less populous ones, per capita representation varied widely, with Ontario having the least number of outlets per capita (three per 10,000). Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest site representation of any province at 8.99three times that of Ontario (in all of Canada, Yukon Territories was highest, at 15.38 per 10,000). There remains a sharp contrast between Ontario and Quebec: the latter having 1.7 times the number of retail gas bars per capita. Quebec had the highest number of retail gas stations of any province: 3,894.
Click here to view the survey.
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