Participants in the Russian automotive market told Kommersant about rising prices: according to Fit Service, oils have become 15–20% more expensive since the start of the year, with some products up to 40% more expensive. Imported products, according to Yulia Trushkova, service director at Rolf, have doubled in price.
The shortages have hit premium and original oils hardest, including products from Shell, Castrol, BMW and the Volkswagen group. Vladimir Andreyev, head of the service direction at marketplace Fresh, said that over the past two months purchase prices have risen 1.5–2 times, and delivery times have increased from two days to two weeks. "Certain popular oil positions are simply unavailable — we buy from intermediaries what manufacturers managed to ship earlier," he added.
One reason cited by the publication's sources is a shortage of imported additives needed for oil production. Some market participants link the disruptions to unscheduled repairs at oil refineries and limited availability of certain raw materials. Additional difficulties, according to Tatyana Ovchinnikova, director of the Fit Service auto repair chain, were created by the situation around the Strait of Hormuz, which raised the cost of raw materials, sea freight and cargo insurance.
Demand for oils is growing amid the return of gasoline with lower environmental standards. The government on August 5 allowed the production and sale of fuel of the Euro-2 to Euro-4 standards, and on August 18 the St. Petersburg Exchange began trading such gasoline. Due to its higher sulfur content, such fuel wears out oil faster, so experts interviewed by Kommersant recommend reducing the interval between oil changes by 1.5–2 times.
The oil shortages come amid a fuel crisis. According to data from the GdeBENZ service, cited by The Insider, on August 16 gasoline and diesel were available at 28.1% of Russian gas stations, down from 41% a week earlier. On the morning of August 19, some gas station chains in Moscow limited fuel sales to 40–60 liters per vehicle.