Oil companies received warnings for bad conduct at the exchange

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) sent warnings to “Rosneft”, “Gazprom Neft”, “LUKOIL” and “Gazprom Gazenergoseti” to improve fuel trade at St Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX).

Head of FAS Department for Regulation over Fuel-and-Energy Complex, Dmitry Makhonin said: “The warnings in general concern improving the structure of exchange trading in the part of observing the requirements for regularity and evenness. We drew attention of some companies to an extremely large scope of sales within groups and recommended to increase sales on the market. We also pinpointed to them the volumes of fuel export, particularly, to “Gazprom Neft” that exported goods in the period of repairing Moscow Oil Refinery. FAS considers that in this case the company could satisfy the demand on the domestic market when one of its largest oil refineries was in repair. Also in March the Ufa Group Refineries reduced production. FAS already pointed it out orally to “Rosneft”, but now we have stated this fact in the warning”.

According to Dmitry Makhonin, within 10 working days oil companies must give answers to FAS, what kind of actions they intend to undertake in response to the regulator’s warnings on exchange fuel trading. Head of FAS Department emphasized: “If any of the above companies do not change their exchange fuel trading, it will form the grounds for opening a case on violating the antimonopoly law”.