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Sales declined for five of seven major refined product groups in July as the overall total slipped by 2.2% compared to 2004, Statistics Canada reports.

July’s sales were just under 8.56 million cubic metres, down from about 8.75 million cubic metres last year.

For the seven months, StatsCan data showed overall sales at just over 58.68 million cubic metres were down by 0.3% versus 58.86 million cubic metres in 2004.

Product groups showing increases for July were diesel fuel oil -- which continued to be the only one to show an improvement every month this year compared to 2004 -- and heavy fuel oil.

A mere 0.2% increase to just under 2.1 million cubic metres allowed diesel fuel oil sales to keep up the momentum this year, with the seven-month total growing to 23.66 million cubic metres -- five per cent higher than in 2004.

StatsCan data showed only two other product groups have showed an increase in seven-month sales compared to last year.

Heavy fuel oil and motor gasoline sales increased by 2.9% and 0.1% to 4.81 million and 23.66 million cubic metres respectively.

Heavy fuel oil sales were up by 16.1% compared to last year, but volume was just 698 800 cubic metres versus 602 100 cubic metres in 2004.

For July, gasoline sales were just under 3.69 million cubic metres, down 0.4% from last year.

StatsCan said regular non-leaded and premium gasoline sales decreased by 0.3% and 2.7% respectively. Meanwhile, mid-grade gasoline sales increased by just 0.1% in July.

Monthly gasoline sales have increased modestly or only slightly declined compared to 2004, despite other StatsCan reports that have pointed to higher pump prices at various times this year.

Transactions for petrochemical feedstocks -- materials produced by refineries for making chemicals, synthetic rubber and a variety of plastics -- showed the biggest numerical and percentage declines for July in falling by 127 700 cubic metres to 379 300 cubic metres, 25.2% below the 507 000 cubic metres in 2004.

Petrochemical feedstocks also showed the biggest sales decline through the seven months in falling by 12.3% to 2.65 million cubic metres versus 3.02 million cubic metres last year.

The 11.6% drop for light fuel oil sales to just under 2.89 million cubic metres for the seven months compared to about 3.27 million cubic metres in 2004 -- a decline of about 378 100 cubic metres, StatsCan indicated.

Light fuel oil sales were down by 14.1% in July versus last year, but the volumes were just 148 800 cubic metres and 173 200 cubic metres, respectively.

Sales of various other refined products, which are grouped together, were down 8.4% and 4.3% for July and the seven months.

Deals for aviation turbo fuels were 5.9% and 0.4% lower in July and for the seven months.

(Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from Statistics Canada’s regional offices, its World Wide Web site at http://www.statcan.ca and its toll free access number 1-800-263-1136).