Gain valuable perspectives into the petroleum industry with Kent Group Ltd.’s 2019 National Retail Petroleum Site Census annual report. This unique study, a comprehensive enumeration of the petroleum retail outlet population in Canada, provides key insights into industry trends.
Click here to purchase the report: Purchase
Purchase of the 2019 census includes a PDF version of the report as well as all appendices in Excel spreadsheet format.
Click the link here to read the executive summary: Executive Summary
Key Findings
As of December 31, 2019, there were 11,937 retail gasoline stations operating in Canada, or 3.2 outlets for every 10,000 persons. Our census illustrates a continued diversity of brands of gasoline in Canada (we measured 93 different “brands” of gas), although the physical product largely originates from 14 refineries in Canada, operated by a total of six refining organizations. Similarly, we identified 67 companies involved in the marketing of gasoline, where they manage a network of two or more stations.
Generally, trends in the Canadian fuels marketplace over the last fifteen years show refiner-marketers are less involved in setting fuel prices, down from nearly a third of all sites in 2004 to just 21 percent of sites in 2019. Remaining gas stations (some 79 percent) in Canada are price-controlled by a diverse mix of petroleum marketers, whose importance and influence is growing, particularly between two sub-types: Regional distributors and “big box” marketers. The latter has an influence on the retail petroleum market – particularly in terms of price competitiveness – that is far out of proportion to their relatively small number of outlets.
Canadian fuel marketers increasingly operate some or all of their network using a brand owned by another company. In 2019 this represented 37% of all sites in Canada, up considerably from 2004.
Other Topics Include:
- Trends in site operation;
- retail gasoline outlet representation by province;
- provincial throughput efficiency;
- refiner-marketer and marketer-retailer relationships;
- retail landscape;
- retail relationships and control over assets; and
- outlet features and offerings.
Appendices show a detailed breakout of sites:
- by brand;
- by marketer;
- brand ownership;
- traditional vs. non-traditional listings; and
- pump price control listing
For further information, contact Suzanne Gray at 519-672-7000 ext 108.
For 50 years, Kent’s objective, timely and accurate data and its data-driven consulting expertise have placed it at the forefront as a provider of data, analytics and consulting relating to the downstream petroleum industry in Canada and abroad. Kent is recognized as an authority in marketing economics, performance measurement and benchmarking, price/margin reporting/analysis and regulation, and industry economic research and analysis. The company’s client base covers the spectrum of integrated and independent petroleum marketers, government and regulatory agencies, industry associations, and large-volume petroleum buyers.
On February 1, 2019, Kent joined Kalibrate Technologies Ltd. The alliance of Kent and Kalibrate has created a highly integrated provider of services for the retail petroleum and convenience channels. It brings together comprehensive data, analytics, location and network planning and pricing strategies, and consulting and advisory services.