Has the extent of the fuel shortage at service stations been underestimated? For several days, franceinfo has regularly received messages from Internet users who are surprised at the figures communicated by the government: “27% of stations with out of fuel, from Nogent to Mitry, I have just visited 17 stations that are completely closed! Let the minister explain to us what data her figures are based on”thus indignant a reader under the pseudonym of Marc Nogent, Monday, October 17.
In order to verify the official data, franceinfo released its calculator. But impossible to come across the same figures as those transmitted by the government. This work, carried out in collaboration with the data cell of the Figaro, shows that applying the same methodology as the executive, using the same data source, the numbers we get are 8 to 20 percentage points higher than the government. AFP, which has carried out similar work on official data, comes to the same conclusions, with fuel rupture rates “much superior” to those of the executive. Asked by franceinfo, the government explains that it has additional analysis parameters.
Franceinfo therefore questioned the database of the site www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr, indicated as a source on the site of the Ministry of Energy Transition (read the detailed methodology at the end of the article). This platform, managed by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF), provides free access to daily updated information (tariff monitoring and fuel availability at service stations in mainland France). The result of our calculations, in the graph below, shows significant differences.
The gap is marked from the first communications made by the government, on October 5th. That day, the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, reported “12% of stations nationwide experiencing difficulties on at least one type of fuel”.
However, the figures calculated by franceinfo indicate a rate of 20% of stations in difficulty on the same day, i.e. eight additional percentage points. This gap with the official figures will then widen over the days. The biggest difference was reached on Monday, October 17, with a rate of stations in difficulty of 50% according to our calculations, against 28% according to the government.
Asked by franceinfo, the Ministry of Energy Transition identifies “several factors that can justify these differences”. First of all, the ministry affirms that it relies on finer data than that which the DGCCRF offers for downloading to the general public on the site www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr. “The basis we have is from a specific portal that has specific functionality based on breakup statements”specifies the ministry, which claims to have access to an additional indicator called “of availability”filled in by service stations to let them know which fuels they distribute.
This information is not actually present as such in the data downloadable from the site www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr. But it can be deduced from the list of fuels for which each station indicates prices and breaks.
The ministry then advances as a second possible cause “filling errors”. The DGCCRF data is declared directly by the managers of the service stations themselves. “However, in this period of high tension, one can imagine that there are errors in filling service stations and therefore a confusion made between what is a break and what is non-distribution, in particular on the essences”says the ministry.
This risk of data entry errors is also underlined by statistician Jean Dupin, who worked on data from the www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr site, as part of an INSEE study on fuel prices in Burgundy-Franche-Comté. Asked by franceinfo about the declarations of rupture, he warns of a “element certainly very volatile and sensitive to input errors as well as the non-assiduity of certain stations”.
To take the temperature, franceinfo contacted Tuesday morning, at random, a sample of five service stations which were then out of at least one fuel, according to data from the DGCCRF. All confirmed the information contained in the database.
The government’s figures are also contradicted by those listed on the participatory maps enriched by feedback from motorists on the internet and via mobile applications. Several sites such as mon-essence.fr or Gasoil Now offer these maps often described as the most reliable for having a real-time status of shortages in a given territory.
On Wednesday, October 19, at midday, the mon-essence.fr site reported nearly 4,240 stations in total or partial fuel shortage. Reported to all service stations in France (11,000 according to the Ministry of Energy Transition), this gives a rate of 39% of stations in difficulty. A result identical to that calculated by franceinfo for the whole day (39% also), but still well above the rate of 20.3% estimated by the government.
So how can these discrepancies be explained? Franceinfo has found that the rupture rates are close to those communicated by the government for the past few days, by removing the E10 variant of unleaded 95 from our calculations. This fuel, composed of 90% unleaded 95 and 10% ethanol, was introduced in 2009 in France. It has now often replaced pure 95 unleaded and has become the best-selling gasoline in France.
Asked about this possibility, the ministry affirms that the three essences (SP98, SP95 and SP95-E10) are well taken into account in “a specification which is given to a service provider [le ministère ne précise pas quel prestataire] who does the extraction, which is reprocessed by our services but not very much in the end”. The DGCCRF for its part refused to comment to franceinfo on the figures calculated from its own database, saying that “the Ministry of Energy Transition has its own calculation method”. A method that everyone is hard pressed to understand.
Methodology
The government’s methodology for calculating the daily rates of service stations in difficulty is specified on the website of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, on a page titled “Fuel supply situation”. It is specified that the data used “come from the site www.prix-carburants.gouv.fr”. This platform, managed by the General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF), provides free access to daily updated information (price monitoring and fuel availability at service stations in mainland France). .
“The service stations declare twice a day (before 8 a.m. and before 4 p.m.) the availability of each product on this portal”, writes the ministry. But not all service stations in France are required to fill in this database. alone “stations that sell more than 500 cubic meters per year are required to make this declaration, i.e. approximately 9,800 out of 11,000”adds the ministry.
Questioned by franceinfo, the ministry also specifies that it considers a station in difficulty if it is out of gasoline or diesel. And that for a station to be judged to be out of gasoline, it must no longer have either unleaded 95, unleaded 95 E10, or unleaded 98. These three fuels being considered “as potentially substitutable” by the ministry.
During our analyzes of the database fuel-prices.gouv.frwe were able to note differences in the restitution of breaks between the file aggregating all the reports since the beginning of the year (used by franceinfo) and the daily files (used in particular by Le Figaro). Differences which may explain certain discrepancies in the respective calculations of franceinfo and the Figaro.