The budget is tired of sharing with the refinery – Kommersant

The plans of the Ministry of Finance to halve payments on the damper from July may lead to an increase in fuel prices, market participants fear. The changes, according to the Ministry of Finance, will allow the budget to save 30 billion rubles. per month. As a result, the refinery margin could be halved, which, according to Kommersant’s interlocutors, will force oil companies to raise wholesale prices. But, since, according to experts, the government will restrain the growth of retail prices at the level of inflation, the margin of gas stations will already be under threat.

The Finance Ministry’s announced halving of payments to oil companies under the fuel damper mechanism will lead to an increase in wholesale fuel prices due to a reduction in refining margins, market participants believe. On April 28, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced his intention to halve the damper from July 1, the changes will remain in effect for a year.

“The reduction of subsidies for oil refining will encourage oil companies to increase the export of oil and oil products, which will lead to an increase in fuel prices in the domestic market,” one of Kommersant’s interlocutors believes. Another Kommersant source believes that the cut in payments for the damper carries certain risks for the domestic market of petroleum products, especially given that the cost of raw materials for refineries has recently increased. In his opinion, in the foreseeable future, there may be prerequisites for manual intervention in the market.

The damper was originally devised after the 2018 fuel crisis to prevent oil companies from raising wholesale fuel prices domestically when oil prices rise. Now oil companies receive payments for fuel supplies to the domestic market, which are calculated as part of the difference (68% for gasoline and 65% for diesel fuel) between the export price and the indicative wholesale price in the Russian Federation (56.9 thousand rubles per ton of gasoline and 55. 2 thousand rubles for diesel fuel). If the difference between these prices is negative, then the oil companies pay extra to the budget.

In April, the Ministry of Finance already cut payments on the damper (an adjustment was introduced to limit the Urals discount to Brent to calculate the damper). As a result, since the beginning of the month, the cost of AI-92 and AI-95 on the SPIMEX exchange has increased by 9%, to 50 thousand rubles. and 55.8 thousand rubles. per ton, respectively. Prices for AI-95 have already exceeded pre-sanction levels (see Kommersant dated April 26).

Now the Ministry of Finance is going to introduce a new coefficient of 0.5 into the damper formula for gasoline and diesel fuel. “The margin of processors today is 8 thousand rubles. per ton, before it was less than 2 thousand per ton. If you look where it comes from – due to the damper. It turns out that we pay the margin to oil refiners from the budget,” explained Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. The new coefficient will halve the size of the damper: it is not a replacement for the existing coefficients Kab_comp (0.68) and Kdt_comp (0.65), which determine the share in which the budget compensates companies for the difference between the export and indicative fuel prices.

According to Kommersant’s estimates, in April the gasoline damper is expected to be at the level of 15 thousand rubles. per ton, for diesel fuel – 14.5 thousand rubles. per ton. Thus, the budget will pay over 100 billion rubles to the oilmen for April. Under the current parameters, oil companies could lose more than 50 billion rubles. per month, however, Mr. Siluanov estimated the effect of reducing the damper at 30 billion rubles. per month. Probably, Kommersant sources note, the reduction in the damper will be partially offset by a decrease in the MET on oil by 20 billion rubles. per month (due to a decrease in the Cabdt coefficient in the MET formula, which historically was introduced just to compensate for budget expenses on the damper).

The idea of ​​the Ministry of Finance in the conditions of April would have reduced the margin of the refinery by half. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, officials proceed from the premise that companies will gradually regain most of the lost margin by raising wholesale fuel prices, so long as this growth is not too sharp. It is no coincidence that Anton Siluanov warned on April 28 that it would be important for the FAS to control prices for petroleum products. In addition, an increase in wholesale prices is not necessarily and not immediately translated into an increase in prices at gas stations, since the latter are more tightly controlled by the regulator, which can put pressure on the margins of gas stations.

Boris Sinitsyn from Renaissance Capital notes that the question remains, on the one hand, of the reaction of wholesale fuel prices to a change in the damper mechanism, and on the other hand, at what prices the government will monitor in order to exclude growth. There is a risk, he argues, that the ultimate goal of the authorities will be to prevent the growth of retail prices in the first place: “Consequently, after changing the damper, it is worth waiting, roughly speaking, for an increase in wholesale prices with unchanged retail prices, which may lead to a drop in the profitability of gas stations.”

Dmitry Kozlov