The Insider reviewed federal summaries from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), press releases from its regional offices and reports in regional media, and counted at least 70 separate companies and individual entrepreneurs against which antitrust measures have been applied since June 1 over pricing in the retail sale of gasoline and diesel fuel.
The count excluded wholesale sellers, companies facing complaints solely over gas motor fuel, and the agency's offices in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Where a company first received a warning and later became the subject of a case, the outlet counted it as a single episode.
The scale of the campaign is growing by FAS's own statistics. On July 21 the agency reported 15 opened cases and 38 warnings issued to oil companies and independent market participants. By August 18, FAS reported 41 cases and 68 warnings; by September 14, 55 cases and 83 warnings. Between July 21 and September 14, the number of cases grew almost fourfold.
One of the first major investigations began in late June. The Perm regional office of FAS recorded a sharp change in prices at gas stations of the Likom chain, which dominates in several municipalities. The company did not comply with a warning, after which the office opened a case over abuse of a dominant position.
On July 6, the Moscow region office of FAS opened a case against six independent market participants, including OOO AIST and Toplivny Sindikat. The analysis showed that all six simultaneously raised retail prices for gasoline and diesel: the service saw signs of a prohibited agreement between competitors.
The Lipetsk office of FAS opened a case against OOO NP-T, which sells fuel under the Two-NP brand. The company holds the entire market in the Novonikolskoye rural settlement of Dankovsky district. On August 18, antitrust officials demanded that it lower prices to an economically justified level, but the company did not comply with the warning.
Against the backdrop of the investigations, the fuel shortage in retail is worsening. As Novaya Gazeta Europe calculated based on data from the gdebenzin service, while on July 21 AI-92 was unavailable at 8% of filling stations, by August 20 it was unavailable at 52%, by August 29 at 33%, and by September 15 at 45%.
The trend for AI-95 is similar: on July 21 it was unavailable at 32% of gas stations, by August 20 at 55%, on August 29 at 38%, and by September 15 at 53%. The share of filling stations with queues between August 19 and September 14 held in the range of 20-27%, and with sales limits over the past week at 11-12%, compared with an August average of 3.2%.
St Petersburg and Leningrad region were hit hardest by mid-September: motorists report queues of more than two hours, the authorities plan to introduce restrictions and say the situation is unlikely to improve before the start of October. Residents of Novorossiysk, Krasnodar, Irkutsk, Perm, Surgut, the Rostov and Arkhangelsk regions, and the Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi autonomous okrugs also experienced an acute gasoline shortage over the past week.
Ukrainian drone strikes have disabled a fifth of Russia's oil refining capacity, but refineries are only increasing their profits. According to Rosstat, in the first half of the year they earned 938 billion rubles - 16.2% more than a year earlier - and in the third quarter profits will grow even more, The Moscow Times writes.
Promsvyazbank analyst Ekaterina Krylova attributes the growth in "super-profits from refining" to a combination of high wholesale prices on the St Petersburg exchange SPbMTSB and increased payments under the fuel damper. In the second quarter, payments from the budget amounted to almost 350 billion rubles each month; for July-August, 500 billion. According to Krylova's estimate, in the third quarter the net margin of refiners could grow by 45% - to 35,000 rubles per ton of gasoline and 48,000 rubles per ton of diesel.
Retail prices, meanwhile, have risen since the start of the year by 21.2% for gasoline and 18.4% for diesel fuel. Large oil companies that own refineries and gas station chains are using budget payments to keep prices at their stations close to inflation, while independent chains buy fuel at increased wholesale prices and sell it at a higher price.