Higher Oct fuel damper will be compensated by unpaid Sept funds and sources outside oil industry - Russian Energy Ministry

MOSCOW. Oct 12 (Interfax) - Damper payments for fuel, which will be increased from October, will be compensated by reduced payments in September, as well as by sources from outside the oil industry, First Deputy Russian Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin told reporters.

The government press service said at the beginning of October that a decision had been reached to amend the Tax Code and reestablish the fuel damper from October 1, changing its coefficient from 0.5 to 1.0. The coefficient has been reduced from 1.0 to 0.5 from September.

Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Sazanov said earlier that any changes to the damper subsidy for fuel must be neutral for the budget. "There has to be a comprehensive solution. If you increase the damper, you need to compensate for the increase so that it is budget-neutral. I don't know yet, I haven't seen a comprehensive solution," he said.

"The discussion about the sources [of financing the damper] s already well underway," Sorokin said on Thursday,

"In keeping with the instructions, we, together with the Finance Ministry, have been working on a number of sources, including the damper that will be unpaid for September. That is, the amount that oil workers will not receive due to going above the upper limit of the price range. It has already been roughly calculated and is being finalized," he said.

"The amount of sources [for financing the damper] will consist of this damper plus other sources that do not relate specifically to the oil industry. And to those refineries that supply the domestic market," Sorokin said.

"This work is being carried out jointly with the Finance Ministry. All the major decisions about reconfiguring the damper have already been announced, these decisions and sources are now being finalized. The damper is paid at the end of the month following the reporting month, and all adjustments must be made before then since the new terms must be effective from October 1. A bill should be expected in the near future," he said.

The Petromarket research group calculates the total unpaid damper for September at 145 billion rubles, of which about 60 billion rubles for gasoline and 85 billion rubles for diesel.