Fuel consumption drops significantly - below the pre-corona level

Created: 08/04/2022, 10:00 am

By: Simon Mones

Fuel consumption in Germany is still below the pre-corona level.

The petrol stations have ordered around a tenth less than in 2019.

Without numerous corona restrictions, the demand for diesel and petrol could have increased significantly again this year.

But things turned out differently, and fuel consumption in Germany remained well below the pre-corona level in the first months of the Ukraine war.

This is shown by an evaluation of the official mineral oil data for the spring months of March, April and May.

The demand for petrol and diesel continues to lag behind the pre-corona level.

© Sascha Steinach/Imago

Fuel consumption below pre-corona level - because of high prices?

For both diesel and petrol, the data shows a decline of around one tenth compared to 2018 and 2019.

However, the situation is different compared to the first two years of the Corona virus: The demand for diesel between 2020 and 2022 in the spring months remained below the pre-pandemic values, but at a relatively constant level.

For gasoline, 2021 and 2022 are close together, but 2020 falls significantly.

The reason for this is probably the first lockdown, during which only a few people were traveling by car.

The difference to diesel can be explained by the fact that private customers tend to use petrol engines.

Fuel consumption below the pre-corona level - filling stations order less petrol and diesel

The data reported by the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (Bafa) does not directly show the amount filled up, but only the deliveries of fuel to the filling stations.

However, since the refueling behavior of motorists has an effect on repeat orders at the petrol stations, conclusions can still be drawn from this.

Between March and May 2022, around 4 million tons of petrol and almost 8.4 million tons of diesel were delivered.

In 2019 it was 4.5 million and 9.5 million tons in the same period.

But what led to this drastic decline?

Fuel consumption below pre-corona level - E10 is gaining in popularity

One factor may be that fuel prices have climbed to record highs as a result of the Ukraine war.

As a result, many Germans leave their cars at home more often and therefore have to refuel less often.

And the tank rebate also had an effect to a certain extent, because many deliveries are likely to have been postponed to June due to the tax cut at the end of May.

Delivery was the key here.

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Accordingly, May was below the April values ​​for both petrol and diesel.

In previous years, the demand for petrol had always increased during this period, while the demand for diesel mostly remained about the same.

However, the effect is not large enough to explain the decline to the pre-corona level overall.

Even the increasing proportion of electric cars is not enough to trigger this change.

But the Germans apparently not only fill up with less, but also with other fuels.

The proportion of E10 has recently increased significantly.

From March to May 2022 it was 22.8 percent, in 2021 it was 16.6 percent.

From 2018 to 2020, the proportion was still around 13 percent.

The reason for the switch could be that E10 costs up to six cents less than normal petrol.

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