Illegal trading and adulteration remain two of the biggest problems plaguing the domestic fuel sector, according to the findings of a survey conducted by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE).
Survey editors said “rules currently in place are not enough to enhance competition, healthy market conditions and consequently cannot fully protect consumers against high prices and low product and service quality.”
The private, non-profit organization proposed a number of measures, including the equalization of oil taxes on products with similar characteristics, i.e. unleaded gasoline and super unleaded gasoline, diesel and heating oil; stricter controls on exports (ships sailing both in domestic and international waters); abolition of LRP (lead replacement petrol) unleaded gasoline and a number of small-packaged additives (required only for some old-technology vehicles); stricter control of procedures for selling ship fuel, etc.
Overall, with regard to the country’s energy market, the IOBE study argues that the importance of oil products in the country’s energy balance remains high in the middle of the present decade, as it has been for the past three decades. According to IOBE, oil products account for over 70 percent of total energy consumption on average. This reflects the slow rate of substitution of oil products by other forms of energy.
Total demand in the domestic market is rising, primarily as a result of higher demand for unleaded gasoline and heating fuel, which have the highest shares in the domestic oil market.
In the decade under review, the study says, the transport sector has been the biggest end consumer of oil products, accounting for as much as 53 percent of total consumption. Road transportation accounts for almost 75 percent of total oil consumption in the transport sector.
In terms of oil consumption, the industrial sector holds second place (19 percent), while a similar share is held by the household sector. The latter has been growing steadily since 1995, consuming increasingly higher amounts of oil products. Agriculture and services are at the other end of the scale, with 6 percent and 2.5 percent respectively.
Market shares
Diesel consumption in Greece holds the lion’s share at over 50 percent, rising constantly in the period 1995-2005 to record annual growth of 4.3 percent. On the other hand, heating oil consumption has almost doubled in the period under review, with annual growth of 6 percent.
Gasoline consumption ranks second with a market share of 42 percent among all oil products. In the period 1995-2005, gasoline demand registered an annual growth rate of 3.4 percent, solely as a result of greater demand for unleaded gasoline.