"Two hands for": oil companies want to limit their margin

Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy Head of the Economic Department of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Gazeta.Ru regarding changes to the damper mechanism.

The Cabinet of Ministers wants to change the damper mechanism - the reverse excise tax, which reduces the dependence of fuel prices at gas stations on world oil prices, and also to limit the margin on gasoline and diesel. The Ministry of Finance proposes to introduce new rules from July, oil companies asked to establish them in March.

Should we expect a new increase in diesel prices?

According to Sergey Kondratiev, the early approval of changes to the Tax Code will curb the growth of retail diesel prices by 2.5 rubles. And the oil industry can bring up to 200 billion rubles additionally.

“With average annual prices of about $80 per barrel of oil and an exchange rate of 74-75 rubles per dollar, the government will additionally pay refineries from April to December 2022 about 100 billion rubles for gasoline and the same for diesel. In this case, it will be possible to avoid a rise in diesel prices to 57.4 rubles by the end of the year,” the analyst explained.

“In our country, once every two or three years, there is a stable situation when, at high prices on world markets, fuel begins to be redirected for export. In 2022, a record increase in the supply of Russian diesel to the United States was a clear example. Large companies are insured against the negative impact of the global market. Independent filling stations are forced to buy fuel in the wholesale market at much higher prices,” Kondratiev said.

Russians should not expect the fuel crisis to end before the end of 2022. The cooling of world oil prices and the reduction of the internal cost of gasoline and diesel in the country will become possible only if sanctions on the sale of raw materials are lifted from Iran and Venezuela. In this scenario, the volume of supply on the global market will be able to meet the growing demand, Kondratiev emphasized.