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Appendix 4 Estimation of Energy Consumption by Scottish Transport and Other Oil-based Consumption

Appendix 4.1 DTI oil & petroleum figures for Scotland and UK combined - 2002 ^(1,2)

Notes
(1) Excludes products used as a fuel within refineries that are included in Tables 3.4 to 3.6.
(2) Includes the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
(3) Includes deliveries of marine diesel oil.
(4) Includes deliveries of LPG road transport fuel.
(5) Includes deliveries of miscellaneous products and petroleum coke.

Appendix 4.2 FES analysis of DTI oil & petroleum data, prior to adjustment of transport statistics

Appendix 4.3 Scottish fuel consumption - as GWh, based on Appendices 4.1 and 4.2 above

Appendix 4.4 Analysis and commentary

A 4.4.1 Transport use of oil & petroleum

Initial analysis of DTI consumption figures suggests that, for petrol and diesel, Scotland appears to have far less than pro-rata consumption compared against the rest of the UK:

Thus the per capita use of vehicle fuel in NI is 47% of the England & Wales figure of 666 kg/person, while the Scottish figure of 401 kg/person is 40% lower.

The low figure for NI is not too surprising because:

• There is a lot of invisible export (both legal and illegal) from the Republic of Ireland.
• NI there are fewer cars per capita compared with the UK average.
• The majority of the population live in and around Greater Belfast.

However, these factors were not expected be so great when comparing Scotland with England and Wales. Some differences would be expected due to:

• Fewer cars per capita compared with the UK average, and
• Perhaps pro-rata better bus/train/underground especially in Glasgow & Edinburgh ⁷⁰.

However, one would have thought that this would be partially if not fully counterbalanced by other factors, including:

• Greater need for haulage from Scotland to its main markets in rest of UK/Europe (although not all the fuel would show up as Scottish consumption due to fuel purchases outside of Scotland).
• The need for more day-day travel outside the Central Belt ⁷¹.

This logic is confirmed by the headline comparison of key Scottish transport statistics with the whole of Great Britain ⁷²:

This shows that household car ownership is 11% lower in Scotland and that number of vehicles per 100 of the population is 13% lower. However, the road traffic is only 4% lower.

Hence, for road use we conclude that the DTI Scottish consumption statistics appear to be understated. Overall, one would have thought Scotland would be much closer to E&W - perhaps around 600 kg of petrol/diesel per person. This would add a further 30-50% to the DTI figure. The main reason was thought to be mis-attributing fuel consumption to the accounting point-of-sale, rather than the real point-of-sale (for example, supermarkets and other substantial chains).

This discrepancy has been discussed with the DTI and with Netcen, which compiles the GHG emission statistics based on consumption. Further investigation by these revealed two key issues as potential sources of inaccuracy in regional fuel sales data:

• Cross-border fuel sales - This factor is especially evident in Northern Ireland, where the price differential between fuel in the UK and the Republic of Ireland has encouraged purchase of fuel from outside of the UK ( DTI: Personal Communication, 2004).
• Supermarket fuel sales - Where a supermarket chain purchases its fuel from storage facilities in England and then sells the fuel in other parts of the UK, the emissions from that fuel sold will be incorrectly attributed to England. Although this is known to be a potential source of inconsistency in the reporting of regional fuel sales from supermarkets, it is also likely to be evident across other economic sectors ( DTI: Personal Communication, 2004).

In its latest report on GHG emissions from the UK regions, Netcen commented that, from 2002, there has been a significant change in the method used to estimate GHG emissions from road transport. The change in the methodology now ensures the trend in the time series of emissions from pollutants such as NO _x matches the trend in emissions of CO ₂.

The original methodology used by Netcen would give a figure of 1.8 Mt of C emissions from Scottish road-transport consumption of oil-based fuels, whereas the revised methodology (based on road miles instead) gives 2.6 Mt of C emissions, an increase of 44%. This would bring the per capita fuel use to just above the England & Wales average figure.

This would be equivalent to a total Scottish road consumption figure of 39.1 TWh, which is close to FES re-estimations (made before the revised Netcen figures were made available - see Appendix 4.3).

A 4.4.2 Other use of oil & petroleum

There are a number of other significant uses of oil: in power generation and as a heating fuel for homes and businesses.

Oil used for generating electricity is pretty close to the figure derived from the total, 1.2 TWh, which makes one reasonably comfortable with its robustness.

By elimination, the remainder must be for (1) Industry, (2) Domestic and (3) Commercial/ Public Sector:

All of these are within the same 'ball-park' as the bottom-up analyses in the main report - section 5.3, which gave some confidence to the figures used for this report.

Appendix 4.5 FES re-analysis of oil-based fuel consumption, based on total road vehicle km for different vehicle type

Estimated in collaboration with AEAT Transport team

Re-applying these to the other transport fuel uses gives:

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