Petroleum Consultants' Report - Canada Losing 2% Of Retail Gas Stations Every Year Since 1989

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CALGARY, July 13 /CNW/ - The number of retail gasoline outlets in Canada
continues to decline, according to a recently released annual survey of retail
gasoline facilities by petroleum consultancy MJ Ervin & Associates Inc.

The annual study, entitled the National Retail Gasoline Site Census 2006,
is the only comprehensive enumeration of the number of retail gasoline
stations in Canada. It identified a total of 13,772 retail gas stations as of
December 31, 2006; a continuation of a downward trend in the number of retail
gasoline stations in Canada since 1989, when over 20,000 retail outlets
existed. The 2006 outlet count represents 4.2 gas stations for every 10,000
persons in Canada.

This trend reflects an average decline of about two percent per year,
over a period of time when Canada's population, and its economy, have been
steadily growing. "This is a consequence of a lack of profitability in the
retailing of gasoline", states Michael Ervin, the president of MJ Ervin &
Associates. Despite significant profits in the oil industry in general, the
retail sector has been a poor performer: in 2006, the wholesale "rack" to
retail markup on a litre of regular gasoline was only five cents per litre at
a typical urban gas station, according to pump price statistics gathered by MJ
Ervin & Associates.

Ervin notes that to be profitable, outlets must sell high volumes of
gasoline in order to compensate for the low margins. They must also be
effective marketers of pop, chips, car washes, and other non-petroleum
offerings that tend to have much higher margins than gasoline. "It's the
stations that lack sufficient fuel sales or sufficient non-petroleum sales
that are closing", Mr. Ervin adds.

EDIT

http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archive/July2007/13/c6402.html