As UK domestic diesel costs escalate, new Continental outlets are
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opening specifically to target fuel sales to UK hauliers. Steve McQueen reports.
We started selling it to local hauliers here. We don't advertise. The market just came to us. We don't sell to Joe Public. It's an unmanned site and we only let companies open an account if they can get a bank guarantee. We don't take the risk that some fuel companies take." Philip Nock, Eric Mattheeuws
Eric Mattheeuws UK: 01304 620574. Eurotunnel (Freight Customer Service): 01303 21306611 political lobbyists are queueing to gain the support of MPs in the fight to abolish the fuel price escalator in the UK, while
one international haulier is exploiting a profit opportunity by selling cheaper fuel to UK haulage operators abroad.
Anglo-Belgian tipper operator Eric Mattheeuws has plans to open two further depots selling fuel—one in Calais and the other in Ostende—in addition to its original site in Veume, This will build on a boom in sales to UK hauliers.
In Belgium, L000 litres of diesel costs around /325. In France it costs £360, but in the UK it costs nearer £610.
"Last month we turned over 650,000 litres. Maybe 6o% of that was sold to UK companies," says company director Philip Nock. While the company has no plans at the moment to abandon haulage in favour of fuel sales, the company is a classic example of how to play the UK system. As well as selling fuel to UK operators, the company also operates 12 of its 25 vehicles from a British base in Dover. Only two of those vehicles are registered in the UK.
Nock says the company has not had to work hard to sell the fuel. We started selling it to local hauliers here. We don't advertise. The market just came to us. We don't sell to Joe Public. It's an unmanned site and we only let companies open an account if they can get a bank guarantee. We
don't take the risk that some fuel companies take."
He insists the advent of the British fuel escalator was not the reason for the original decision to upgrade the company's Fuel dispensing system to retail standards. However, it was a happy coincidence. "Our old equipment was not good enough to carry us into the future. We decided on big changes three years ago. It proved to be good timing. The continuation of the escalator has been a consideration as far as the more recent expansion plans are concerned."
TYPIcal
Dover-based Coombe Valley Transport is typical of the UK operators presently using the Veurne site. CVT managing director Martin Husk runs 25 vehicles. He says: "We buy from him because, even compared to the price of fuel on the EuroShell and DKV international fuel cards, the price is right. It's somewhere about the 32 pence per litre mark. In Calais it's something like 35p/1 plus VAT. If you save a penny or two per litre on roo,000 litres a month, that's quite a difference."
Paul Woodward, European manager at Mike Beer Transport in Dover, operates 45 vehicles including bulk tippers, tankers arid curtainsiders. He adds a different view. "When we operate in the UK, we use a fuel bunkering service. Our vehicles have r,000litre tanks on them so the minimal amount of fuel is bought in the U K—just enough to get them back across the water. We have bought from Mattheeuws, but we have also negotiated a better price from a fuel card company. Our fleet size gives us greater buying power than some smaller operators. It might make sense for them to buy from Mattheeuws."
Domestic operators should have no concerns that refuelling abroad in this way is illegal. In April, the Freight Transport Association's Member Advice Centre received this clarification from Customs & Excise: "It is not deemed an offence for a commercial vehicle to travel to France solely for the purpose of filling its fuel tanks and returning immediately to the UK. The fuel must not be offloaded. It must remain in the original vehicle's fuel tank and be.used on journeys by that vehicle." Saddle tanks may not be filled.
Regular international operators have been buying very little fuel on the UK side of the Channel for some time. They top-up their tanks on the French side before coming back. CM wondered if this could be affecting fuel sales in the UK.
Martin Husk, for example, says he is certainly buying less at home: "We used to buy about three tanker loads a month to put into our system. We are down to one tanker load of about ro,000 litres and the rest we buy abroad. That's all lost revenue to the Government."
CM asked CH Jones if sales of bunkered fuel had fallen significantly around the Channel ports. General manager Tony Garner told us: "Some sites close to conti
nental Europe have clearly been affected. This has been shown both from anecdotal evidence and reductions in volumes of fuel delivered into the system at some individual sites. However, analysis of fuel drawn at sites in three coastal towns between JanuaryJuly 1998 and 1999, was inconclusive as some site volumes had improved and others had declined."
So, assessing the affect of the escalator on lost fuel sales and putting a figure on the actual numbers of domestic operators making trips across the Channel for refuelling purposes is not easy.
Down at the Ashford Truckstop. for example, there was little to suggest that fuel sales to operators near this end of the tunnel have fallen significantly. At the Elf garage on the French side, there are no comparative figures to suggest sales to UK hauliers on day trips have risen sharply either, according to the operator Eurotunnel.
Fuel cruises
On the ferries, there have been no regular "fuel cruises" since the initial few organised as part of a demonstration. The cost of the excursion and the time involved is discouraging—particularly to operators that were not based on the dockside.
According to Frank Stears of Trans-Action who operates four units and an eight-wheeler from his Faversham-base, the journey makes plenty of sense for hauliers like him involved in unaccompai i ed traffic. "Steel, building mate
rials, plastic granules, it all comes in on unaccompanied trailers. At Dartford, there must be about 500 trailers a day. Dover, Ramsgate, Folkstone, Felixstowe, they all have huge volumes of them. It's the poorest end of the haulage market and those are the operators who need to take any advantage they can get If you are an operator in the South-east working with unaccompanied haulage from the Continent, you will travel across to refuel. We don't do it to make a profit. We do it to stay in business. If we didn't buy the fuel abroad, we couldn't survive."
A P&O spokesman lent support to this view. "Traditionally we have had a high proportion of trailers brought in to Dover Docks for unaccompanied journeys over to Calais. Increasingly we are seeing fewer unaccompanied trailers. We think local hauliers in particular are taking the trailers to Calais and then dropping them there, taking advantage of the opportunity to fill up with diesel. We have not seen an increase in tractor-only traffic at the weekends."
In May, Eurotunnel introduced a discounted lorry driver ticket to take tractor units to France. The return fare works out at 16o, with outward-bound departure times restricted to between 12 noon on Saturdays and Tram on Sundays. Drivers must return before 2pm UK time. This compares with a LIO o return fare previously.
However, Eurotunnel has no figures to suggest the deal is a runaway success, although it has no plans to discontinue the price promotion.