UPDATE: Antitrust, energy ministry work to prevent fuel price rise
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MOSCOW, Jan 28 (PRIME) -- Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service and the Energy Ministry have elaborated measures to rule out fuel price growth above inflation, head of the service Maxim Shaskolsky told reporters on Thursday.
"The measures include higher production, reserves, market sales, regularity and evenness of such sales, the ruling out of the possibility of dominant companies buying large volumes on the market," Shaskolsky said.
He said that all oil companies agreed to start boosting refining in February and take the overall fuel reserves to 1.6–1.7 million tonnes by May 1 to satisfy the market needs. According to Shaskolsky, the oil companies have a responsible approach to the government recommendations on fuel, and there are no preconditions for a price rise above inflation.
Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said that a mechanism of fuel price regulating payments proved to be effective in 2019–2020. "We saw in 2019 that price growth did not exceed inflation in spite of quite high prices on the external market. This was in many respects due to the damper payments," Sorokin said.
He also said that the antitrust and the Energy Ministry would issue a joint order to raise the obligatory commodities market sale share for gasoline to 11% and diesel fuel to 7.5% in February.
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