Who is to blame or what to do? Independent gas stations will be responsible for the fuel crisis

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented on the situation with rising gasoline prices in Russia to the Novye Izvestia Internet portal.

According to Reuters, due to attacks by Ukrainian drones in August, Russia lost 17% of gasoline and diesel fuel production. This amounts to 1.1 million barrels per day, or half of the monthly oil supplies to India.

— Despite the fact that there is little such information in the information field, we know that such attacks continue. And we know that some of our refineries are forced to reduce their production of motor fuels," Alexey Gromov confirms to Novye Izvestia.

— The main problem is that it is extremely difficult for us to replace damaged equipment due to sanctions. Either we need to use parallel import services, which is becoming more and more difficult, or we need to produce analogues of damaged equipment or order it from China, and all this also takes time.

— If prices break through the psychological threshold of 70 rubles, this is a threat to macroeconomic indicators, the threat of a new acceleration of inflation, and the government will take all measures to prevent this. In this case, the government will conduct a much tougher dialogue with oil companies. And regardless of whether independents companies suffer or not, it is important for them to prevent an excessively rapid and systemic increase in motor fuel prices," Alexey Gromov says.