A Slovnaft filling station. (source: SME - Marko Erd)
Who makes a profit selling fuel? And where does the petrol and diesel-fuel at individual pumps come from? Index magazine list unveils the conditions in the Slovak filling station market.
It is no surprise that Slovnaft, OMV and Shell are at the top of the list. Still, the there is competition in the main peloton. Index magazine covered the 15 largest chains and ranked them by the number of filling stations.
The ranking is based on data provided by the chains on their websites and publicly available registers or provided directly to Index. The list includes neither stations that offer only LPG, nor the Lukoil chain currently under the Slovnaft brand.
In terms of revenue, it should be noted that some smaller companies not only sell fuel, but other commodities as well. Interestingly, most large chains have seen declining revenues in recent years due to fuel prices and the pandemic limiting the mobility of people.
The magazine tried to find out from where each chain buys fuel, with some of them openly saying so on their websites.
In addition to Slovnaft, fuel is supplied to Slovakia mostly by Austria's OMV with a large refinery in Schwechat, Austria, and Poland's PKN Orlen with a pair of refineries in Litvínov and Kralupy nad Vltavou, the Czech Republic.
Often it is also a question of logistics. For example, OMV stated that some of its stations obtain fuel from other suppliers, although it adds its own additives.
