OMV Petrom dominates Bucharest, where it has more gas stations than in any county.
Rompetrol regrouped and decided to build a strong presence on the seaside in Constanta, close to the Petromidia refinery by the Black Sea and in Prahova, a county with mountain resorts, where Petrom is weaker.
MOL Romania, which has opened eight new filling stations after EUR6.6 million investments since the beginning of the year, focused on Cluj, Mures, Timis, Bihor and Arad (northwestern and western Romania).
The position of MOL near the Hungarian border can be explained by the proximity to the group’s refineries, the main source of fuel for its Romanian network.
Russia’s Lukoil decided to take on Petrom directly and has the second largest gas station network in Bucharest.
Petrom has the largest network of gas stations of all the fuel retailers in Romania, 542, followed by Rompetrol (405), Lukoil (301) and MOL (143).
According to the data provided by the four companies and centralized by ZF, most gas stations operate in Bucharest, 121.
Petrom has the largest network in Bucharest, 60 stations, followed by Lukoil (30), MOL (21) and Rompetrol (10 stations).
Constanta, a city on the Black Sea coast connected by highway to Bucharest and a very important area for the country’s economy because of its harbor and the Petromidia refinery, is the second favorite place for gas station operators.
Petrom, Rompetrol, Lukoil and MOL have 59 filling stations in the area.
Unlike Bucharest, Rompetrol is the leading gas station operator in the county, with 25 stations. One of the reasons for this may be the proximity of the Petromidia refinery, the main asset of the Kazakh-owned Rompetrol group.
The two companies fighting for the top spot in most counties of Romania are Petrom and Rompetrol, the largest local oil companies, with Lukoil and MOL very close behind.
MOL Romania, the subsidiary of Hungarian oil group MOL, operates 15% of its 143 gas stations in the country in Bucharest, while the rest were mostly opened in the center and western part of Romania close to the Hungarian border. The fuels it sells in Romania come from the refineries of the group in Hungary, MOL Romania officials said.
Lukoil Romania is the third largest gas station operator and Petrom’s rival in Bucharest. It has 30 gas stations in the city and the areas where it made most of its investments are Ilfov, Timis, Cluj and Arad Counties.
Fuel (gas and diesel) consumption in Romania stood at 5.7 to 5.8 million tons last year, according to the data available. Diesel consumption accounts for about 75% of the total.
The revenue of the oil companies also comes from sales of non-oil products in their gas stations. According to ZF’s calculations based on the information supplied by the oil companies, non-oil products sold in gas stations made up a EUR600 million market. Therefore the almost 2,000 gas stations in Romania can be considered the country’s largest retail network, whose sales can compare to those of Real last year, a company with 24 hypermarkets and EUR650 million sales.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)