Alcohol will be returned to gas stations due to rising fuel prices

The government will compensate oil workers for the freeze on fuel prices: they will again be allowed to sell weak alcohol at gas stations and will be given subsidies to further curb gasoline prices.

Details

• To limit the rise in gasoline prices, the government is ready to allow oil companies to sell alcohol at gas stations again. Since 2011, this has been prohibited, but all relevant departments, except the Ministry of Health, believe that the sale of beer and wine at gas stations can be returned. The decision has already been approved by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, Vedomosti learned .
• This is a clear nod to large oil companies, which in the spring had to freeze prices at their gas stations after gasoline prices rose by more than 7.3% in January-May. “45 rubles per liter of diesel fuel. How long can you tolerate this? It’s already impossible, stop this somehow,” driver Alexey Karavaev from St. Petersburg was indignant in June on a direct line with Vladimir Putin. Since then, oil workers have kept their word and have not raised prices; in return, the government urgently reduced excise taxes on gasoline and diesel and abandoned their planned increase in July.
• Senator from the Astrakhan region Gennady Ordenov proposed returning the sale of alcohol with a strength of up to 16.5% at gas stations. In his amendments, he wrote that the number of accidents involving drunk drivers did not decrease after the introduction of a ban on such trade: in 2010 there were 11,800 such accidents, in 2015 - 16,000.
• The return to the sale of alcohol is good news for the oil industry: in the world, gas stations receive most of their profits from the sale of related products; at Lukoil, sales of non-fuel products cover 33% of gas station operating expenses; by 2027, the company wants to increase this share to 80%.
• But alcohol is not the only guarantee that there will be no sharp increases in gasoline prices in the near future. The main thing is a scheme to subsidize fuel prices, which next year will give oil workers about 600 billion rubles (although it seems they will have to return about 110 billion rubles to the budget in the form of additional taxes).

What's in it for me?

The containment of gasoline prices (most of the lost income for oil workers is compensated from the budget) will also be paid for by consumers by buying beer and coffee at gas stations. And in the moment, gas stations independent of oil companies will suffer the most.

Artem Gubenko