OREANDA-NEWS. January 13, 2014. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) together with its regional Offices analyzed the state of competition on retail markets of gasoline and diesel fuel in the Russian Federation in 2012.

The objective of analyzing retail markets of gasoline is to establish dominant position of vertically-integrated oil companies in the regional markets.

The anaslysis1 showed that:

Retail markets of gasoline (all grades) are highly concentrated in 64 subjects of the Russian Federation, moderately concentrated in 4 subjects of the Russian Federation, and in 2 subjects of the Russian Federation markets have a low level of concentration

Retail markets of diesel fuel are highly concentrated in 65 subjects of the Russian Federation, moderately concentrated in 7 subjects of the Russian Federation, and in 2 subjects of the Russian Federation markets have a low level of concentration.

In the majority of the subjects of the Russian Federation there are formidable barriers - economic restrictions and presence of vertically-integrated oil companies that considerably reduce possibilities for new economic entities to enter the market. Therefore, competition on the most part of the market is underdeveloped or developed insufficiently, with stable and unchangeable composition of the largest economic entities operating on the market, such as: “Gazprom Neft” OJSC, “Alliance” NK” OJSC, “Bashneft” ANK” OJSC, “LUKOIL” OJSC, “Rosneft” NK” OJSC, “Surgutneftegaz” OJSC, “TNK-BP Holding” OJSC, and “Tatneft” OJSC.

An important factor restricting competition on retail market of motor fuel in the Russian Federation in 2012 was the strategy of behaviour of vertically-integrated oil companies with regard to independent market participants in the form of abusing market dominance.

For instance, in 2012 regional FAS Offices initiated 55 antimonopoly cases under Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” against economic entities that have dominant position on the markets of oil and oil products.

FAS also would like to emphasize a positive trend for reducing the number of antimonopoly violations by economic entities in 2013 (abusing market dominance). For example, in the first six months 2013 FAS regional Offices initiated only 7 antimonopoly cases under Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

* Data supplied by 73 FAS regional Offices.