Although a 2011 report for a study by Deloitte stated that supermarkets have a 39% share of the UK petrol and diesel market – a figure also repeated in the 2012 Office of Fair Trading (OFT) report, new data from the Government shows that the latest combined total for petrol and diesel sees an increase to 46.5% in 2012.

In response, the Petrol Retailers Association is calling for a review of the industry by Minister for Energy Michael Fallon, highlighting that if such expansion continues it could ‘suck up the entire fuel volume of 6 independent retailers in the local area and jeopardise the business of at least 10 existing forecourts every year,’ with repercussions for competition, consumer choice and rural communities.

Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, commented: ‘5,000 forecourts have closed since 2000, another 175 closed last year and the independent retailers are continuing to get massacred by the aggressive discounting and below cost sales tactics by supermarkets.’

The Petrol Retailers Association highlighted that the statistical data on retail fuel volumes since 2008 has recently been revised on the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) website, after ‘gross reporting errors were uncovered by officials’.

Madderson added: ‘This re-jigging of key market information underpins our members’ real concern that the UK’s energy resilience for retail fuels is at stake. If this situation is allowed to continue, there will be an inevitable acceleration in the number of site closures to more than 300 per year. Thus there will be a severe worsening of supply resilience from fewer sites with low stockholdings.’