Europe's fuel retail sector is being reshaped by falling profits and rising costs. High taxes mean margins have always been fairly tight, but in recent years profitability has been further squeezed, first by competition from supermarkets, and more recently by the cost of new environmental regulations and tumbling sales volumes. Progressive improvements of around 1 % per year in engine efficiency have been a major contributor to falling fuel sales, in addition to the "dieselization" of Europe's vehicle fleet and changing demographics and patterns of use across the continent This has been exacerbated by the recession and government car-scrappage schemes, all of which are feeding into declining oil product demand in Europe, with the International Energy Agency forecasting an average annual decline of 0.7% between 2009 and 2015, from 15 million barrels per day to 13.9 million b/d.
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机译：利润下降和成本上升正在重塑欧洲的燃料零售部门。高税收意味着利润一直很紧，但近年来，首先是受到来自超市的竞争，最近由于新环境法规的成本和销量的下降，利润率进一步受到挤压。除了欧洲汽车车队的“柴油化”以及整个非洲大陆人口结构和使用方式的不断变化之外，发动机效率每年逐步提高约1％也是导致燃料销售下降的主要原因。政府的汽车报废计划，所有这些都助长了欧洲对石油产品需求的下降，国际能源署（International Energy Agency）预测，2009年至2015年之间，年均下降0.7％，从每天1500万桶降至每天1390万桶。
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