Often parroted point with little knowledge on what actually happened, italy had plently of fuel by the start of ww2, fuel gotten with the big help of Cavagnari in 1938, 2 million tons of fuel. Wich is more than all other nations on the european continent, enough fuel for about 2 and half years of war, and thats why so much of it was used, in 1940 and 1941 the battlefleet sortied basically at any alarm of a british fleet it could intercept and in middle 1942 it sortied 2 times, both huge italian victories.

By late 1942 in terms of big units only cruisers regurarly sortied.

That amount of fuel is one of the many reasons why the fleet was properly used, achieving the first objective it had in ww2, protecting sea lanes, while also being pretty good at other things, like contrasting big british operations.