Agro Perspectiva

Government will continue looking for measures to stabilize situation on fuel market

27.03.2012 09:22 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) — The Energy and Coal Industry Ministry will continue to look for measures on long-term stabilization of the situation on the oil products market with taking into consideration interests of the state and market participants. A relevant instruction to the ministry was given by First Vice Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky at a meeting of the expert-analytical group on development of the issues of oil and oil products market functioning and development of the oil processing industry, held last week in Kyiv. «It is necessary to prepare a complex decision about what the government should do in order to stabilize the market, to give certain profitability to its participants and to give a long-term perspective, and the government should be given possibility to influence this market,» Valeriy Khoroshkovsky said. In turn, the Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yuriy Boiko called on participants of the meeting to develop and present their proposals. At the same time, the Minister emphasized on the necessity to preserve stability on the market. «Stability is very important for all participants in the market and users. But taking into consideration instability on foreign markets and fluctuation of oil prices in the world, it is necessary to implement a complex decision and clear and favorable rules of play for all market participants. Stability is what we tried to reach over a long time, at the same time, calculations and methods were developed by all market participants,» the Minister noted. As OilNews informed, during a meeting, oil products producers repeatedly spoke in favor of introduction of import duties. In turn, participants in the meeting noted that this will lead to a proportional increase of prices, which is contrary to government’s current tasks. Representatives of Ukrtatnafta stood with an initiative of changing a mechanism of price formation for Ukrainian oil at auctions with the aim of its cheapening (today, a price is pegged to prices for imported oil). Representatives of retail networks, in turn, spoke for return to reduction of excise duties. According to participants in the meeting, Khoroshkovsky did not support the project on exemption of 1 million tons of oil and products made of it from VAT. He called obvious losses of a special fund on preparation for the European Championship as the main drawback of the variant on reduction in excise duties. To remind, participants in the Expert-analytical group took a decision March 23 about an increase of a price corridor for gasoline and diesel fuel by 10 kopecks/liter. As the Secretariat of the Expert-analytical group notes, the adopted decision is timely and is caused by an increase of a price for oil on world markets. Next meeting of the Expert-analytical group is planned for March 30, 2012.