Antimonopoly Service found way out to reduce gasoline prices

UFA, 6 June 2018. /Bashinform News Agency, Elmira Sabirova/ translated by Tatiana Aksyutina/. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has developed a project to stabilize prices and volumes of gasoline supplies to the filling stations. As Izvestia reports, oil companies are going to increase the volume of mandatory fuel sales at the stock exchange. The new requirements will primarily apply to companies that have the largest refineries in Russia.

Oil industry workers rarely violate current regulations, but they often manipulate prices, drastically reducing supplies to the minimum, experts said. Now they are obliged to keep sales volumes at the exchange no lower than the standards approved by the FAS and the Ministry of Energy: 10% of total sales for gasoline and 5% for diesel fuel. Fuel suppliers are obliged to raise this minimum to 15% for gasoline and up to 7.5% for diesel fuel. FAS proposes raising the bar for aviation fuel (from 10 to 15%), fuel oil (from 2 to 3%) and liquefied gas (from 5 to 7.5%) for other types of fuel.

If the majority of oil companies are against the increase in sales through the exchange, saying that they are already exceeding the current standards, Rosneft is on the side of the FAS and supports raising the sales volume through the exchange.

The amendments proposed by the FAS should be included in the joint order with the Ministry of Energy on the minimum volumes of fuel sales at the exchange, signed in 2015, but it is not yet known how quickly the antimonopoly project will be adopted.

Recall, that the price of gasoline rose in Bashkiria six times in May.