Refineries will receive 1.7 trillion rubles from the budget for dampers this year

Russian oil refineries will receive about 1.7 trillion rubles from the budget by the end of 2023. damper payments against more than 2 trillion rubles. a year earlier. This is how much it will cost the budget to contain the cost of fuel on the domestic market. Let us remember that this year the government managed to reduce damper payments by half, and then, after the fuel crisis flared up, returned them in full.

According to Kommersant’s estimates, by the end of 2023, Russian refineries could receive 1.7 trillion rubles. damper payments for fuel supplies to the domestic market. Last year, when oil prices were significantly higher, payments amounted to about 2.15 trillion rubles, while in previous years they were several times less. The Ministry of Finance was unable to promptly respond to Kommersant’s request.

According to Reuters calculations, the damper for December (to be paid in January 2024) for gasoline will be about 16.4 thousand rubles. per ton, for diesel fuel – about 21.6 thousand rubles. per ton. As a result, total December payments will amount to about 160 billion rubles. against 190 billion rubles. for November.

The damper, which became operational in 2019, continues to be a key mechanism for stabilizing fuel prices in the domestic market. The essence of the mechanism is that with an increase in ruble oil prices, Russian oil companies hold back prices on the domestic market, and in return receive subsidies for shipments within the country at the expense of the budget.

In 2023, another fuel crisis broke out on the Russian fuel market, which the government not only failed to prevent, but also did not immediately manage to bring under control. Thus, gasoline prices increased continuously starting in the spring until September. One of the reasons for the increase in prices was the Ministry of Finance’s plans to halve damper payments from September. There were other reasons – in particular, protracted repairs at refineries as a result of Western sanctions against the oil sector. In addition, the attractiveness of fuel exports has increased due to an increase in oil prices, which began to grow actively in the summer amid cooperation between OPEC and Russia to reduce supplies to the market. In September, the average monthly cost of AI-92 and diesel fuel in the European part of the Russian Federation at SPbMTSB deviated from the indicative values ​​​​established in the Tax Code by more than 10% and 20%, respectively, as a result of which oil companies lost damper payments for the first time in history. This circumstance affected the final dimensions of the damper for the year.

The crisis was resolved only after the government took an emergency measure at the end of September – a ban on the export of gasoline and diesel fuel. This step was intended to saturate the domestic market with fuel until the restoration of damper payments for oil companies is approved. Since October, the government has retroactively returned full payments to refineries, allowing prices to stabilize.

“Damper manipulation, without exaggeration, is one of the main tax events of the year,” says tax expert Boris Lutset. One of the main conclusions is that the state and oil companies interpret this mechanism completely differently, he believes. “Before the damper was halved, the supervising ministers and the Deputy Prime Minister almost unanimously assured that fuel prices would not change significantly,” recalls Mr. Lutset. “Before the full damper was returned, the Ministry of Finance also noted that the price increase that had taken place had nothing to do with it. But oil workers consider it one of the key elements of fiscal policy and regularly demand a review of its parameters.”

The return of the damper to its previous parameters in October, for the first time in history, did not require additional tax withdrawals from oil companies. Instead, the Ministry of Finance decided to compensate for the budget costs of paying for the damper at the expense of Gazprom, increasing the mineral extraction tax on the condensate it processes. The further dynamics of damper payments, as last year, will depend on the situation with budget revenues – it was the low collections in the spring of 2023 that prompted the Ministry of Finance to the idea of ​​halving payments.

Dmitry Kozlov