Forecourt road fuel sales have remained stubbornly rooted at about 8% below pre-pandemic levels despite the removal of almost all Covid-19 restrictions.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (DBEIS) has moved from weekly to monthly reporting of sales figures and for the four weeks to August 1 they show fuels sales across Great Britain were 16,280 litres per day, which is 92% of pre-pandemic levels.
Compared with the four weeks ending July 4th, average sales per filling station decreased 1.2% across Great Britain as a whole. Average sales were 1.4% lower in England, 0.8% lower in Scotland and were 0.7% higher in Wales.
Across GB average daily sales of diesel for the most recent four weeks were 9,510 litres, 91% of pre-pandemic levels, and average daily sales of petrol were 6,770 litres, which was 93% of pre-pandemic levels.
The statistics from DBEIS give a weekly breakdown going back to the start of 2020, and report that in the eight weeks prior to the first lockdown on March 23 2020, average daily sales were 17,690 litres per filling station, with a peak of 20,983 on Friday February 28.
After the lockdown they fell rapidly bottoming out at 2,522 litres on Sunday April 12 and have been recovering ever since, with occasional setbacks.
The figures from BEIS are based on end-of-the-day snapshots of petrol and diesel sales and stock levels from a sample of around 4,500 filling stations across Great Britain.
However, the fuel volumes are collected primarily from oil companies, supermarketsand large independent filling stations, and this results in higher daily average figures than if all independent volumes were included.
No comments yet