Russian ministries will resolve disagreements on range of deviation from indicative prices in fuel damper in near future
MOSCOW. April 2 (Interfax) - The Finance Ministry and the Energy Ministry will resolve the disagreements over the range of deviation from the indicative prices in the fuel damper formula in the next couple of weeks, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov told Interfax.
"The issue concerns the range of deviations from the cut-off price established by the Tax Code. This range is currently being discussed, and there are disagreements between the Finance Ministry and the Energy Ministry. Over the next couple of weeks, the disagreements will be settled at the level of [Deputy Prime Minister] Alexander Valentinovich Novak. The corresponding changes will be prepared for submission to the State Duma," he said.
A source familiar with the situation previously told Interfax that a proposal to increase the deviation from the indicator by 20% for gasoline and 30% for diesel fuel was being discussed. At the end of last year, during discussions on changes to the formula, State Duma Energy Committee Deputy Chairman Yuri Stankevich introduced an amendment to the State Duma Budget Committee to increase the threshold deviation from the indicative prices - for gasoline from 10% to 15%, and for diesel fuel from 20% to 25%.
According to the current Tax Code, if wholesale fuel prices in Russia rise too sharply and on average deviate from the established indicative prices (60,450 rubles per tonne for gasoline, 57,200 rubles per tonne for diesel fuel in 2025) by more than 10% for gasoline and 20% for diesel fuel in a month, the damper will not be paid for that month.
So far, there has been only one precedent in the practice of the fuel damper, when it was zeroed out during the price crisis of 2023. At that time, oil companies did not receive the fuel damper from the budget for September because the average exchange prices for both gasoline and diesel fuel in that month were much higher than the threshold after which the damper is nullified.
After this precedent, oil companies repeatedly requested that the damper calculations be separated for gasoline and diesel fuel, establishing the price exceedance levels separately for each type of fuel, and also expanding the deviations from the indicative prices for each petroleum product. Last year, the threshold levels were separated by fuel types.
As of 2024, oil companies received 1.82 trillion rubles from the budget through the damper mechanism, 1.59 trillion rubles for 2023, 2.17 trillion rubles for 2022 and 674.5 billion rubles for 2021. In 2020, due to market conditions, oil companies paid 356.6 billion rubles into the budget through the fuel damper. In 2019, the budget paid 282.2 billion rubles to oil companies through the damper.