RF Vice Premier Alexander Novak has discussed commodity exchange and retail prices for oil products as well as fuel reserves in a meeting with Russia’s oil majors, federal executive bodies, market experts analysts, the RF Governmt press office reports.
At present the remaining stocks of car petrol makes over 1.6 mn tons, diesel fuel stocks amount to 2.6 mn tons, which is sufficient to meet the market demand.
Car petrol production in 2021 is up 6.5% year-on-year, with home market deliveries up 12.6%. Export in July was down 14.6% year-on-year.
Novak noted that retail prices for petrol develop in correspondence to the inflation while the Government continues to pay special attention to commodity exchange prices.
He said a downward trend in commodity exchange prices is to be observed. ‘We hope the situation will get normalized soon. Oil majors can and should help stabilize the wholesale market. The first step in this direction would be a balanced expansion of oil products offer at commodity exchange,’ Novak said.
He added that to fine-tune commodity exchange trading, non-producers may be temporarily forbidden to sell fuel. Also, entities affiliated with vertically integrated oil compaanies may be forbidden to buy fuel, and a maximum growth limit during a trading session may be set.
‘I also commission the Ministry of energy to adjust the oil refineries maintenance schedule to support market balance in summer. More radical measures, such as banning oil products export, remain on the agenda and may be implemented in case the situation deteriorates,’ Novak said.