the Dispute arose amid rising gasoline prices at the exchange can easily be explained by the rapid recovery of demand for automotive fuel after removing karantinny restrictions, for which no time production. But due to record levels of the cost of gasoline AI-95 (57.3 thousand rubles per tonne), the market started to panic a little. Then for the first time and the idea came to lift the ban on the import of fuel in Russia, entered June 2nd. “Psychologically, the fact of the abolition of the moratorium on imports may provide necessary support to market, to relieve the tension”, – said the head of Department of regulation of fuel and energy complex and chemical industry FAS Armen Khanyan (quoted by “Interfax”).
the Idea of a ban on the import of fuel came in early April after a sharp fall in oil prices. Then wholesale and retail prices in some countries of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region were lower than the domestic prices in Russia. Foreign manufacturers have been able to offset their losses at the expense of exports to Russia that could have a negative impact on the production of domestic refining, its profitability.
With a recovery in oil prices above $ 35 per barrel the cost of gasoline in the European markets returned to the level higher than the Russian price. As said the analyst of “Finam” Alexey Kalachev, lower than in Russia, prices are now only in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan.
the lifting of the ban could signal that the market is close to recovery, and to calm the exchange. But oil prices are far from stable, and no one can guarantee that they again will not fall below 35 dollars per barrel. Another reason is not in the best situation in the domestic oil refining. The falling oil prices greatly reduced the profitability of Russian oil refining factories (NPZ), and according to the IG “Petromarket” their margins are already negative for the second month. In this situation, even with today’s cost of a barrel to open the market to imports of fuel prematurely. Cheap imported product will be more marketable, which will lead to even greater losses of Russian oil refineries. Only in April, to ban, to Russia from Belarus were delivered to 40.1 thousand tons of fuel, despite the fact that the total shipments for the entire 2019 amounted to only 200 thousand.
“the Russian refineries today are limited in their ability to compete with cheap imports: they can’t reduce the price of fuel, as limited by the action of the damping mechanism is introduced to stabilize domestic prices,” said Alexey Kalachev.
