The number of closed gas stations began to exceed the number of opened ones.
During January-September of this year, 935 individual companies and entrepreneurs in the retail fuel sales branch were closed, while only 668 new ones were opened, meaning that out of about ten new companies and entrepreneurs, there were fourteen who are no longer working.
If we take into account the entire country, about 10.7 thousand organizations are engaged in retail trade in fuel, minus 3% compared to last year. True, it is not worth moving the indicator directly to gas stations - several gas stations can be managed by one company, so it is quite possible that we are talking about market consolidation.
In general, there are still more independent gas stations that are not owned by any of the vertically integrated oil companies in Russia - about 60% of 28 thousand. However, this does not affect fuel sales - the segment provides a maximum of 40% of all sales.
As expected, the most affected by the fuel crisis, apart from the buyers, were independent gas stations - along with the reduction of sales standards on the stock exchange, the availability of fuel for them also decreased.
If you take into account the transition of the market to the over-the-counter channel, gasoline and diesel will be sold by those who have reached agreements with suppliers, and this is certainly not possible for everyone, not even to mention the profitability of such sales.