New Geographies of Fuel Purchase During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from the Italian Northeastern Border Zone

Under normal conditions, favorable connections with Slovenia and Austria allow residents of the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia to take advantage of the different market conditions abroad. However, due to pandemic-issued border closures, the privilege of unbounded mobility was compromised. This contribution aims to understand the implications of a temporary border closure on the fuel retailing market by exploring quantitative data on fuel purchases made available by diverse public entities. In the first year of the pandemic, despite a national situation in which a strong contraction in sales of fuels was recorded, the Friuli Venezia Giulia region behaved significantly differently from Italy, especially in its border provinces of Gorizia and Trieste. The return to an open border has triggered strong international competition. As such, the results advance our knowledge of the impact of customer (im)mobility on the economy of a borderland.