Gasoline prices in Russia will not change, despite the drop in oil prices

That the price tags at gas stations in Russia will not fall and will not grow, said Russian energy Minister Alexander Novak.

Some car owners have already been wondering about how will the cost of automotive fuel due to the fact that fallen world crude oil prices. Recall, they collapsed after the unsuccessful negotiations of the countries-participants of OPEC+ to reduce the production and decay of the agreement. In the end, yesterday morning, March 9, April futures price for Brent crude fell by almost one-third (to 31.38 per barrel), also fell and crude oil (to 27.9 per barrel). Later, the price tag rose slightly, but the drop still remains visible.

The Ministry of energy of the Russian Federation suggested that the world oil prices after the collapse, probably will recover in a few months, the head of Department Alexander Novak said during an interview with TV channel “Russia-24”. According to him, this will depend on measures to combat the spread of coronavirus as the growth in demand for oil and petroleum products during cheaper prices.

Alexander Novak also said that despite the drop in oil prices, retail gasoline prices in Russia will remain stable. Minister of energy explained by the fact that they continue to act earlier adopted by the government of the Russian Federation of the regulatory interventions on the domestic fuel market.

A special mechanism that makes the major players in the market to keep fuel prices on the domestic market, was launched in mid-2018. In fact, it allows you to keep those price fluctuations that are felt in the global market. In the end, the current system helps “smooth and level” the change in the value of oil and oil products on world markets. This led to the fact that in the last year and a half prices at filling stations are rising beyond inflation.

According to Rosstat, on March 2, 2020, the average price of a liter of gasoline AI-92 in Russia is of 42.51 rubles, 95 – 45,92 of the ruble, and for every liter of diesel car owners have to pay on average 48,14 ruble. The Ministry said that this week retail gasoline prices rose in 25 centers of subjects of the Russian Federation. The most noticeable was the rise in price in Khabarovsk (0.8%) and in Birobidzhan (0.6%).

We have previously reported that in Russia by the end of 2019 was created by the so-called “map of fuel quality” of the country. It was prepared in accordance with the identified facts of the circulation of the surrogate. It turned out that in the country slightly improved the quality of gasoline: according to the results of studies on the proportion of fuel that does not meet the requirements of the technical regulations, had 8.9% of cases (according to the results of the previous year it was equal to 9%).

Now filling that fell on poor-quality fuel, punished negotiable fines. The relevant provision came into force in 2018. If earlier the average size of the fine for such stations were equal to only 60 thousand rubles, after changes had increased to 560 thousand rubles.