Ukraine has to increase fuel stock to 2-month domestic consumption level - Energy Ministry

MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax) - There is a sufficient fuel stock on Ukraine's domestic market, however, it should be increased for risk minimization by introducing the European guaranteed stock mechanism, Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Nikolai Kolesnik said.

"The Energy Ministry proposes that a European mechanism be introduced and the sufficiency becomes permanent," the Ukrainian media quoted Kolesnik's statement published by the ministry on a social network.

According to the ministry, a bill on the minimal stock of oil and petroleum products in Ukraine, which has been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, aims to minimize every risk of market instability and to prevent a fuel deficit, as the one seen in 2023.

As reported, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Energy, Housing and Utilities discussed the bill on the minimal stock of oil and petroleum products in Ukraine, to be formed with the annual allotment of 3% of the fuel supplied by market actors, at a meeting on May 15.

Kolesnik said during the bill's presentation at the meeting of the Energy Committee that the stock would amount to 61-day average domestic consumption in Ukraine.

"We have decided to begin with 61-day consumption, which is 3% of the estimated base. [...] This is the volume that today is already largely formed by market actors, that is, we will not create any burden for them," he said.

In his words, the bill sets the minimum input of market actors in the stock: 2,000 tonnes of oil and petroleum products for importers and 50,000 tonnes for manufacturers.

The bill, which relies on the European principles, aims exclusively at the creation of a mechanism for compensate for a physical deficit of oil and petroleum products in crisis, Kolesnik said. The stock must have no effect on market prices, he added.