By Ken Pole | February 3, 2012 Estimated reading time 2 minutes, 46 seconds.
In the overall scheme of things, aviation fuel sales are not a major factor in Canada refined petroleum products market, where overall sales last year are estimated by Statistics Canada at 105.49 billion litres. In a summary supplied to Canadian Skies in advance of the release of its December bulletin on refined product sales (Catalog No. 45-004-X), the statistics agency said that the 2011 total of 23.20 billion Imperial gallons (IG) or 27.87 million U.S. gallons (USG) represents a 1.6 per cent increase over 2010.
However, there no escaping the fact that the three aviation fuels (Jet A, Jet A-1 and avgas), which represented only 5.6 per cent of total refined product sales, showed significant slippage last year. Part of the drop evidently was due to the generally depressed state of the economy in 2011.
Although there was a surge in sales last summer compared with the summer of 2010, the overall drop indicated significant downturns in the other seasons. While this is also true of the other aviation fuels, there is a much more pronounced increase and decrease with non-jet aviation fuel, a Statistics Canada analyst said in an email. There is also a drop in the production of the fuel, leading to the assumption that demand is not present.
However, some fixed-base operators have suggested to Canadian Skies that most of the drop probably occurred in the airline sector, because business aviation enjoyed a modest resurgence in 2011. Others said Canadian fuel taxes are a likely factor, and that more Canadian pilots may be opting to top up their tanks in the U.S.
Sales of kerosene-type Jet A and A-1, used by the major operators, fell 4.1 per cent to 5.82 billion litres (1.28 billion IGs or nearly 1.54 billion USGs). Sales of naphtha-type Jet B, which enhances cold weather performance and is used mainly by the military these days, fell 12.6 per cent to 12.19 million litres (2.68 million IG/3.22 million USG).
Meanwhile, sales of aviation gasoline, still the mainstay of Canadian general aviation and recreational flyers, nosedived by 18.6 per cent to 62.95 million litres (13.85 million IG/16.63 million USG).
For comparison sake, motor vehicle gasoline sales remained the largest single commodity, accounting for fully 41.9 per cent of all Canadian refined products last year. They were up one per cent from 2010 at 44.20 billion litres (9.72 billion IG/11.68 billion USG).
