Shell came to Moscow

The Anglo-Dutch company opened the first two gas stations in the capital

The Anglo-Dutch concern Shell has finally broken through to the Moscow fuel market. Yesterday the company announced that on August 6 and 7 it opened two gas stations under its brand - on Lermontovsky and Volgogradsky Avenues. Shell plans to open four more gas stations by the end of this year. The company's plans, as it announced almost two years ago, are to occupy 10% of the capital's fuel market. However, now it will be much more difficult to achieve this: about a year ago, Mikhail Gutseriev’s RussNeft company began actively buying up Moscow gas stations and has already taken a significant share of the market, with no intention of stopping.

Shell owns the world's largest network of gas stations - more than 45 thousand gas stations in 90 countries. By the way, this is 10 thousand more than McDonald's restaurants. The company came to Russia in 1997, purchasing a small gas station network in St. Petersburg. As the Shell press service noted, the choice of the northern capital fell quite by chance - “the company simply received a very advantageous offer.” Now in St. Petersburg there are already 18 gas stations operating under the Shell brand, and by the end of the year their number could grow to 23. But the company has not yet been able to enter the Moscow market. Back in 2003, Shell won a tender from the capital's government to lease land for the construction of gas stations with alternative fuels. The company immediately announced that it intended to build a whole network of such gas stations in Moscow. But the matter has not yet moved forward - plans to transfer urban transport to alternative fuels remain only on paper. Last October, the Anglo-Dutch concern won a tender for the construction of nine gas stations in the Moscow region, on the basis of which the company also intended to build a network of gas stations in 2006-2007, but at the moment this project has not been implemented.

As experts note, entering the Moscow market is quite a difficult task for oil companies. It is the largest in terms of turnover in the country, while sites for gas stations are limited and expensive. If in St. Petersburg the cost of a plot is about 0.7-1.4 million rubles, then in Moscow the price already rises to 4 million rubles. At the same time, there is fierce competition in the capital, both among leading oil companies and small networks. In addition, the capital market places higher demands on fuel quality and service level compared to other regions. Nevertheless, most companies, even in small numbers, are trying to gain a foothold primarily in this market, since in addition to profitability, capital gas stations are a source of advertising for the brand itself. It is not for nothing that TNK-BP is planning to rebrand its 24 Moscow Slavneft gas stations this year and bring them to TNK standards.

In addition, it is very difficult to obtain land plots for gas stations in the capital due to the lack of free space. For this reason, experts previously believed that it would make more sense for Shell to buy existing gas stations.

That's almost exactly what the company did. She took out all six gas stations on a long-term lease in June of this year from the Altseko-Invest and Delta companies. These will be gasoline filling stations reconstructed in accordance with modern industry and corporate standards. Shell did not say who will supply them with fuel, noting only that “these will be Russian suppliers who have high-quality fuel that has passed all the necessary checks.” According to experts, with such small volumes, it will be most profitable to purchase gasoline at the Yaroslavl (owned by Slavneft) or Ryazan (TNK-BP) oil refineries. Previously, some experts did not rule out that this year Salym Petroleum Development, in which Shell owns a 50 percent stake, will supply oil to the Moscow refinery. It was not possible to find out whether this happened yesterday.

Ivan GORDEEV