Antimonopoly activists against LUKOIL

FAS is trying to protect independent gasoline traders

The Nizhny Novgorod Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service recognized LUKOIL-Volganefteprodukt as a violator of the Law on Competition. The company’s fault lies in the fact that in the spring prices at the holding’s gas stations in the Nizhny Novgorod region were lower than the wholesale prices at which fuel was sold from the plant to independent retailers. Now FAS demands that LUKOIL transfer the proceeds received in violation of the law to the budget. However, the antimonopoly authorities have not yet calculated the amount of the fine. But in any case, the oil company intends to appeal this decision.

LUKOIL froze prices at its gas stations in December last year. At the same time, as independent market participants note, until the end of January, wholesale prices at the holding’s refineries also decreased, but in the spring the growth resumed, and in April and May they exceeded retail prices at LUKOIL gas stations in the region. This policy was opposed by the owners of independent gas stations that are not part of the structure of vertically integrated holdings. The head of the Russian Fuel Union (RTS, a professional association of independent traders) Sergei Borisov, in his letter to the FAS, stated: “We cannot just calmly watch how small and medium-sized enterprises go bankrupt... Wholesale prices must also be stopped, otherwise the margin will be so insignificant, that the business of small enterprises will become unprofitable.” RTS also believed that LUKOIL was “squeezing independent gas station owners” out of the market.

In the spring, the FAS opened a case against LUKOIL and its two subsidiaries - the Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez oil refinery and the LUKOIL-Volganefteprodukt sales enterprise. As a result, only the last company was found guilty of violating competition law. As Igor Devyataykin, head of the antimonopoly control department of the Nizhny Novgorod division of the FAS, told Vremya Novostei yesterday, according to his department, LUKOIL occupies 70% of the wholesale petroleum products market in the region, and the company’s actions were recognized as contrary to the Law “On Competition”. According to the official, calculating the amount that the holding will have to pay to the budget will take about three months.

Meanwhile, an unnamed representative of LUKOIL-Volganefteprodukt, quoted by Interfax, does not agree with the accusations. “In the spring of this year, as now, LUKOIL did not occupy a dominant position in the wholesale market of petroleum products, therefore it is unacceptable to consider its actions as causing damage to small entrepreneurs. In addition, the company restrained the growth of retail and wholesale gasoline prices, which contributed to the improvement of the economic situation in the region,” he says.

True, one of the owners of independent gas stations is confident that the FAS will not be able to complete the matter. “Until a new law on competition has been adopted, the FAS is a weak agency,” he told Vremya Novostey. The FAS itself expects that the new law, which is in the Duma, will be approved in the spring.

Since September, by the way, oil companies have again frozen prices at their gas stations until the end of the year. At the same time, LUKOIL, referring to past experience, complained that it had previously “faced misunderstanding on the part of some government bodies and resistance from competitors.”

However, the FAS continues to assure that it will ensure that wholesale prices are frozen along with retail prices, because the takeover of independent traders will strengthen the already monopoly position of large companies in some regions. According to the Russian Fuel Union, on September 22 at Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez the cost of A-92 gasoline reached 19.15 thousand rubles, and on October 13 - 19.4 thousand rubles. per ton.

Denis REBROV