Rising prices and shortages at gas stations: how the authorities will "treat" the fuel crisis

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Khimagregaty magazine on rising gas station prices and the risks of a motor fuels shortage in Russia.

The fuel crisis has turned from an emergency into a routine situation, as well as the rupture of heating or water supply pipes in the middle of winter. However, this year the problems with gasoline and diesel came two months earlier. What's the matter?

— I think the answer is obvious. This is the damage that Russian refineries and oil depots receive from attacks by Ukrainian drones. Unfortunately, all information on this issue is closed, but it is obvious that the "debris" of the UAV, which are all allegedly shot down, is causing damage. This was indirectly acknowledged by our Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak on the sidelines of the SPIEF. He said that in the spring, Russian refineries were undergoing unforeseen, I emphasize, unforeseen repair work," Alexey Gromov said.

— Russia is actively using the opportunities to purchase Belarusian petroleum products, primarily gasoline and diesel fuel, to cover the needs of the Russian domestic market. Moreover, as far as I understand, the Russian fuel damper regime also applies to Belarusian refineries, which encourages Belarusians to supply products to the Russian market rather than to other countries.

— What volumes can we talk about?

— They supply two refineries. Their combined capacity is 3.5 million tons per year for the production of basic petroleum products. This is a fairly significant amount, and given that Belarus consumes less than half of this volume, everything else can potentially come to Russia. This is only an estimate, because there is no publicly available data on the supply of Belarusian gasoline and diesel fuel to the Russian Federation.

— The government will try to regulate the situation on the stock market, because so far it is obvious that the exchange, which forms a price benchmark in the Russian domestic market, sends a strong signal to consumers in favor of price increases, and the authorities want to avoid this scenario.

Therefore, it is possible that the authorities will impose some restrictions on the operation of the exchange. I do not know what we are talking about, for example, a price ceiling after which stock trading can be suspended or something else. Obviously, this imbalance is dangerous. And independent gas stations may suffer from this, first of all," Alexey Gromov points out.