In just eight years, Plenoil has become one of the leading brands in the world of low cost gas stations. They are presented as the first independent chain in that model. The announced end of combustion vehicles has not stopped its strong expansion. In 2022, sales of liters sold doubled to 692 million and billing tripled to 970 million euros. They stopped from 104 to 156 points of sale and opened with their first station in Catalonia.
Is it business to bet on selling a fuel called to disappear?
By 2023, we hope to continue growing until we exceed 1,000 million liters sold and we want to exceed 300 gas stations in 2024. Our goal is to offer customers what they are demanding and now the demand is for diesel and gasoline. When that changes, we will study the market.
Don't you see a future for electric vehicles?
Of course I see it. We even hope one day to be able to supply electric power at our stations. What happens is that technology is moving much more slowly than we would like and there is still plenty of time for electric vehicles to become general and for the moment, a new and more efficient diesel vehicle and the hope of an electric one help more to decarbonise .
Calculations suggest that refueling with Plenoil can mean savings of 300 or 400 euros per year compared to other competitors. How do they get it?
In 2013, when the market for the sale of gasoline was liberalized, a group of businessmen who knew the world of food distribution very well came together and we saw that in Spain there was room to apply efficiency criteria to that market.
For example?
The gas stations were large, with a lot of staff and selling many types of fuel and many other products. We simplify the proposal. We bet on smaller stations to save on the cost of land. We only sell a type of diesel and gasoline 95. We have only one employee during the day and none at night, when there are fewer customers. We underpin that with a very flat steering structure. Thus, adjusting all the costs, we can offer the same product at a much cheaper price.
The same product? Have they already removed the label that their fuels are of lower quality?
This idea corresponds to an efficient marketing campaign of the brands that had the oligopoly when the competition arrived. It has taken many years for the client to notice. But today, I believe that everyone is already very clear that in Spain we all sell the same thing and I challenge anyone to show that additives are different. We all give the same product.
You sell the fuel at the same price as other brands in the sector of the so-called low cost segment. Why choose you and not the competition?
First, because of the comfort that we offer in our facilities, which is better than that of the competition. The refueling lanes are wider, the customer has more space to add fuel. Our canopies are wider with greater coverage from rain or sun where appropriate. In addition, during 80% of the hours in which the greatest number of customers are concentrated, we have staff who attend them. The stations are only unmanned at night. That helps keep them as clean as possible all the time or even get your windshield cleaned.
Plenoil is not seen on the roads much. Is it strategy?
Of course it's strategy. For us, location is one of the keys to success. We study a lot the traffic where we locate our stations and we are committed to being as close as possible to the client. Nobody wants a gas station under their house. But we are located as close as possible to the exits of the cities and in commercial areas, because it is where there is the most turnover.
As cars become more efficient and roads better, the tendency for drivers to refuel early in the journey, refueling in transit is becoming less common.
Bad future for highway gas stations and I deduce that also for independent ones.
The road ones do not have a great future due to the new habits that I have mentioned. The independents either, because this business is more complicated every day. The margins are very small, and the trend towards digitization requires a strong investment that is only amortized if you sell large volumes, so it is difficult for an independent to survive.
Is that why they help you?
What we do is rent those that we consider to be in an attractive location. They tend to be from older independent owners and without offspring interested in the business. We pay them rent, update and digitize the station and make it profitable.
Is it the model that is applied in Catalonia?
Until last year we had not entered Catalonia because it was a very efficient area. There was more competition and better prices than in the center of Spain. Now that we have gained volume, we believe that we are in a position to compete in this area. We want to grow quickly, and a normal opening between works and licenses takes three years. These types of openings by leasing sites allow us to move faster to open those 40 or 50 stations that we are looking for in this community in the next two years.
Will there be diesel supply problems in the coming months?
In no case in Spain. We have companies with a great refining capacity. Another thing is that the lack of diesel in the rest of Europe influences the price, as happened last year.
Will the Government need to reactivate aid?
Any help that involves lowering prices is good. We supported the 20 cents one at the time. But it would be better to bet on more structural measures. European policy is producing a brutal tax increase on fossil fuels that falls more on the most disadvantaged classes. They cannot buy electric cars and have to get to their jobs from the outskirts of big cities and pay more for their fuel when it is their only mobility option.
The 2022 aid unleashed a conflict in the sector that led low-cost gas stations to denounce the large ones for unfair competition before the National Commission for Markets and Competition.
It is not our position. Plenoil's position has never been to criticize the competition, let alone in public. In 2022 there was a problem of access to imports from supply vessels. In moments of scarcity, the big ones have more room for negotiation. And if a company that has refineries sees itself in a position to sell to the whole world, it is market logic that it does so at the best price.
