INTERVIEw

Does the move towards electrification present a challenge or an opportunity for traditional fuel companies?

Both, I think. On one side, if you look at our retail fuels, we’ve diversified our business a lot over these years, moving away from just fuel only to providing a bigger and wider offering for our customers. We now have some of the best food offerings not just in this country, but even further afield. With electrification people will be stopped at locations for ten to fifteen minutes. Typically customers will take that extra fifteen minutes for personal time such as checking emails and social media. They’ll use the facilities, grab a coffee. It’s quite a natural break while at the same time their car is charging away in the background. That will put pressure on us to have a better dwell time offer, making sure the services are really good, toilets, food offerings, even the fixtures and fittings to make sure the customer experience is really strong.

The challenges for now are on the legislative / regulatory space, because obviously we’re transitioning from one fuel to another and that’s going to take more time in certain parts of the country. There’s no getting away from the fact that there is a more rural / urban divide in this. Investing in this infrastructure is very expensive at the moment so people will tend to invest where the cars are, which at the moment is pretty much in the main urban areas. People that are in more rural areas tend to drive more - they have to - and they rely more on their car. For them at the moment, to move to an EV where they don’t have the infrastructure is more of a challenge.

How the transition to EVs is impacting the retail fuel sector

One-on-One with Jonathan Diver, Senior Director of Fuel at Circle K Ireland

have the traditional fuel companies been slow to invest in the move to electrification?

Everything is relative. We operate in Norway where there are electric vehicles everywhere, but when you look across the rest of Europe and the number of chargers relative to service stations or other markers, Ireland actually is doing reasonably well. However, I think it is particularly difficult for independent retailers. We have a big independent retail network as part of our brand, and it is hard for these small businesses to justify the investment needed. This is where the Government needs to take more of an active role because there should be various supports available to make this easier, in the form of capital allowances or tax reliefs.

Globally is there an acceptance within the fuel sector that ‘peak oil’ has passed?

In general I have to say that people in the industry are quite progressive in their approach. Most of the global brands have put targets in place for the coming years. As an industry we have been calling for the introduction of E10, the 10% blended Ethanol, ahead of the Government legislation for it. We believe there are certain things we can do as an industry that don’t have the same challenges as other initiatives. We would be quite keen to see policy move on and have supports provided to people so we can have this transition easier for our customers, easier for everyone to understand what is required, supported by Government policies that includes tax reliefs and incentives for people to go on that journey.

what specific steps has Circle k been taking to move to an alternative fuels network?

We’ve started working with Gas Networks Ireland on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). We’ve also introduced fast charging with IONITY where we have put fast charging facilities at a number of our motorway stations that will charge an EV to over 80% capacity in around 20 minutes. Circle K has its own fast charging offer that has been rolled out in Norway and is being implemented in Sweden and Denmark. For Ireland we have an investment in place to start rolling it out from this year. We will have in excess of sixty fast charging network hub locations in place over the next four to five years.

what are the challenges to this rollout?

It’s quite a lot of investment - putting in the infrastructure in sites is the costly part of this, it’s not necessarily the cost of the chargers themselves, it’s getting the power to the site, putting in sub-stations near to your locations etc. We’ve been working with ESB Networks to try to improve the rollout process to our service stations. The challenge we all have is with the supply of sub-stations - they’re exceptionally expensive, they’re big buildings that have to go on site to supply the necessary power. We see from other countries that there are small types of sub-stations that are not much bigger than a car parking space that do the same job. So we’re delighted to be part of a project with ESB Networks to look at different types of sub-station solutions.

With Cathal Doyle – cathal@fleet.ie For the complete interview with Jonathan, check out www.fleet.ie