During the first nine months of this year, the cumulative sales of liquid fuels amounted to 4.364 million tons, compared to 4.357 million tons in the same period last year, according to data released by the Portuguese Companies of Fuels and Lubricants (Epcol).
In terms of product, gasoline sales increased by 7.3% to 1.016 million tons, offsetting the decrease of 62 thousand tons (1.8%) in road diesel, which totaled 3.348 million tons.
Conversely, liquefied gases saw an accumulated decline of 4.7% in the first three quarters, reaching 326 thousand tons.
Autogas was the only product to experience growth, rising by 13.3% to 46 thousand tons, while butane (-11.9% to 85 thousand tons) and propane (-5.0% to 195 thousand tons) registered decreases.
In the third quarter alone, there was a year-on-year decrease of 0.7% to 1.530 million tons, despite a quarter-on-quarter increase of 3.4%.
Between July and September, 1.151 million tons of road diesel and 380 thousand tons of gasoline were sold, reflecting year-on-year variations of -3.0% and 7.1%, and quarter-on-quarter changes of 1.1% and 10.8%, respectively.
For liquefied gases, there were declines both quarter-on-quarter (-11.8%) and year-on-year (-3.5%) to 96 thousand tons.
Autogas saw a year-on-year growth of 14.1% and an increase of 9.0% from the second quarter to 17 thousand tons, while butane and propane fell by 10.0% and 5.0% compared to the same period last year, to 24 thousand tons and 55 thousand tons, respectively. Quarter-on-quarter, these products saw sales declines of 14.8% for butane and 15.8% for propane.
In October, Epcol released statistics regarding the average retail prices (PMVP) in Portugal for the third quarter.
Year-on-year, between July and September, the PMVP of gasoline 95 and road diesel rose by 0.1% and 1.4% to 1.696 euros per liter and 1.571 euros per liter, while the PMVP of autogas fell by 3.7% to 0.822 euros per liter.
Epcol’s data also indicated that, during the same period, there were year-on-year declines in the average pre-tax price of 4.6% for gasoline 95 (0.744 euros per liter), 3.0% for road diesel (0.773 euros per liter), and 6.4% for autogas (0.438 euros per liter).
