Super gasoline, a fuel that only the wealthy class in Ecuador can afford

That super gasoline remains for consumption by certain sectors of society is an increasingly closer reality, according to experts, who are based on the pace of its dispatch in recent years.

The decline is reflected from more than ten years ago in its annual participation in the automotive sector. Then it worsened with its release decreed in 2018 and with the increase according to the price of oil.

At 2010the participation was 13.3%in 2014 of 11.4%, in 2017 9.0%in 2018 8% and in 2021 of 4.8%according to data from the National Chamber of Petroleum Derivatives Distributors (Camddepe), whose source is Petroecuador.

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As to barrel shipmentsthe super went from 4,551,027 in 2017 to 2,424,566 in the previous year in the automotive sector.

For Oswaldo Erazo, executive secretary of Camddepe, there is a downward trend in the consumption of this gasoline due to the cost, which is now at $3.98 per gallon. And he affirms that currently the citizen see price and not quality.

“Consumers prefer price to quality. The super is for high-end cars and it is a stratum that can pay these pricesthere will always be a percentage, albeit minimal, of consumers of super gasoline”, he points out.

with this coincides Edilberto Llanes, professor in the automotive area at SEK International University. He says that those with greater purchasing power will resort to the super because it has 92 octane, that is, Best Quality.

“Low-end vehicles will go for the extra and eco-country, and high-end vehicles, which are generally owned by people with higher purchasing power and whose vehicles will be considerably affected by the use of low-octane gasoline, will prefer the super”, he explains.

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But 2021 is not the year with the biggest drop in the super, it was in 2020 with a dispatch of 2,009,333 barrels. According to Llanes, it is associated with confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This gasoline could be maintained at a dispatch of 2.3 million of barrels, analyze Xavier Granda, fuel manager of Terpel Ecuador.

“We are not going to reach the figures for 2017, at 2.3 I would think. It’s not going to go down that much,” she notes.

According to Petroecuador, Until mid-February 2022, 498.82 million gallons of fuel have been shipped in all sectors and 214 million kilograms of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), for an amount of $745.6 million.

“It is evident that fuel consumption has increased between 2020 and 2021, hence premium diesel has risen by 26.23%; ecocountry gasoline 19.74%; extra gasoline 22.29%; super gasoline 20.28%; diesel 2 0.28%”, said Ítalo Cedeño, general manager of Petroecuador.

Extra and ecocountry, in good rhythm

There is another trend between the extra and eco-country, but on the rise. These gasolines have had ups and downs in recent years, but not by wide margins.

For example, the extrawhose composition is 85% octane, had a shipment of 13,555,579 barrels in 2017; in 2019 it dropped to 12,899,732; in 2020 it was 10,158,223 and for 2021 there were 12,390,020. In other words, the decrease has not been so significant.

Now with the ecocountry, also 85% octane, but with the difference of 5% ethanol, has had a similar movement. On 2017, 10,608,852 barrels were shipped, in 2019 it rose to 14,348,085. Already in the pandemic year it was 11,214,153 and in 2021 it recovered to 13,426,856.

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“These gasolines must be seen together. The ecopaís has been incorporated and both have 85 octane and the price is the same: $2.55. In Guayaquil, there is an ecocountry because the terminal supplies that product and in Quito there is an extra. Then yes tend to grow by normal market growth and migration (for the price of the supermarket)”, indicates Granda.

Erazo affirms that these two gasolines they become substitutes and Llanes assures that the ecopaís, applied to motorcycles, has this rebound because “these were widely used as means of home services during COVID-19,” he says.

The prices of extra and ecopaís gasoline were frozen in October 2021 when Ecuador abandoned the band system.

Premium diesel, the most dispatched

Since October 2021, the value of premium diesel has also been frozen at $1.90. This gasoline, being the most used for public transport, schoolheavy load, among others, remains above the dispatch of 20 million barrels.

On 2017 was 20,916,473; in 2019 it rose to 22,466,751 and in 2020 it fell to 18,753,252. But in 2021 it recovered to 21,809,075. Premium diesel represents 43% of the fuel segment in the automotive sector.

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“Its slight increase may be associated with the fact that during the pandemicwhen confinement and restrictions on vehicular movement occurred, heavy and medium transport, which are the ones that generally consume this fuel, were not affected, since they were in charge of guaranteeing the supply of food and raw materials so that the sectors were not paralyzed. strategic”, exposes Llanes. (I)