In the government, they thought about a new way to combat gasoline prices, since existing measures do not work. For several weeks there is a discussion of fuel export restrictions, reports VTimes with reference to its sources.
The proposal made an assistant premiere, the former head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) Igor Artemyev. He sent a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak on March 25th. It says that this method is reported to the most Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustina and his first deputy Andrei Belousov. The head of the Russian fuel union Evgeny Arcusha confirmed that the topic was already raised at Novaka.
According to Artemyev, the fight against the export of “individual petroleum products and their components” will protect the domestic market from pressure. The current increase in gasoline sales on the stock exchange from 10 to 11 percent poorly affected the price situation, so the official fears that in the spring the cost of fuel will continue to grow above inflation. An additional reason will be the beginning on parts of refinery of planned repairs
According to Arkushi, the idea of Artemyeva will allow to redirect to the domestic market up to 10 thousand tons of gasoline, which will reduce the wholesale prices. At the same time, an employee of a large oil company argues that the restriction of exports will not lead to a fall in prices, but to a decrease in production, as the profit from oil refining at the refinery almost on zero.
Reuters analyst Maxim Nazarov agrees with the last argument, indicating that such a measure will eventually lead to recycling. This means that it will be no longer about high prices, but about deficiency.
On the eve, the Director of the Natural Resource Group and Commodity Fitch Vyacheslav Demchenko noted that gasoline prices in Russia in terms of dollars remain among the lowest in the world. This assessment is held in the Ministry of Energy, where the cost of fuel in the country is unfair understated.