Время всё обдумать

Time for some joined-up thinking

Several weeks ago I wrote about the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, which had accused five of Russia's largest oil companies of price conspiracy on the jet fuel market. Two of Russia's state-controlled giants - Gazprom Neft and Rosneft - as well as Lukoil, TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz stand accused of abusing their dominating market position and setting excessively high prices on the wholesale markets for jet and diesel fuel in Russia.

Since August 2007 the price of jet fuel in Russia has gone up by 89 percent, irrespective of seasonal changes or any other factors that are going into the price formula. This week the old story surfaced again as the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service accused four out of the five companies - Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, TNK-BP and Lukoil - of failing to provide the necessary documents on their price formation mechanisms and thus hindering the investigation. This has forced the anti-monopoly body to start using the services of the Interior Ministry in the course of examination and to threaten the companies' management and the companies themselves with administrative responsibility.

In the meantime, July figures provided by the Central Dispatch Ad­ministration of the country's fuel and energy complex show that both the production of oil and prices of crude and oil products have started to fall in Russia. The only things that are growing are the oil export tariffs, which are set every three months based on the previous months' prices, and the price of Ai-95 gasoline (this hike being a result of numerous accidents at refineries across Russia). Analysts agree that this downward price trend is a result of political pressure applied by the country's authorities and numerous anti-conspiracy cases filed by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service against the companies.

But the downward trend may not be long-lived. This week it was an­nounced that the Federal Tariff Service has raised the oil transportation tariffs through the Transneft pipeline system by another 19.5 percent. This follows an earlier hike of 15 percent. The new tariff hike is supposed to help Trans­neft cope with financing of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline construction. The increased expenses reflect not only the growing metal prices, which mean higher pipeline prices, but also the growing cost of credits that Transneft is taking out to finance the venture. There is little doubt in anyone's mind that increase in oil transportation tariffs will translate into an increase in oil product prices for the consumers.