The Russian government has decided to meet the oil industry halfway and adjust the damper mechanism in the fuel market. The prices included in it will be indexed in accordance with the level of actual growth in retail value. A message about this appeared on the website of the Cabinet.
Thus, the authorities supported the ideas of oil workers to increase gasoline prices. It was also decided to use the actual retail price growth rates to calculate the damper in the future. According to the government, such measures should improve the economy of the oil refining sector and prevent prices from rising above inflation.
Earlier, the head of Gazprom Neft, Alexander Dyukov, said that it is necessary to index the damper, but not by 5 percent a year, as it is now. “If retail prices grow by 1.5-2 percent, then indexation should be carried out in the same amount,” he noted.
The damper mechanism was introduced in 2018. Its essence is that prices for consumers at filling stations remain stable regardless of fluctuations in oil prices. According to the rules of the mechanism, when the cost of raw materials increases, companies receive a subsidy from the budget to contain the retail price of fuel in the domestic market. Otherwise, the excise tax is paid by the companies themselves to the budget.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, in charge of the fuel and energy complex, promised the Russians that the rise in gasoline prices in 2021 will be kept within inflation.
Gasoline prices in the country have been growing by 5-10 kopecks a week since the end of December 2020, however, they skyrocketed at the end of February. From February 24 to March 1, 2021, AI-92 and AI-95 gasoline rose in price at Moscow gas stations by 11 kopecks – to 44.66 rubles and 49.25 rubles per liter, respectively. During the same period, the price of AI-98 increased by 17 kopecks and amounted to 55.73 rubles ..