Bogdan Tudorache

The reduction of excise duties by 0.32 lei/ liter (including VAT), applied from January 1, 2020, for both gasoline and diesel fuel, was fully transmitted in the price of fuel at the pump – is the conclusion of the Competition Council, following the monitoring made through the”Price Monitor” platform.

At the same time, following the monitoring, the competition authority found that the prices of fuels remained relatively constant at the end of last year, during the period from the announcement regarding the reduction of excise duties and until the implementation of the measure not being registered a tendency of surge.

All six major fuel companies nationwide reduced prices by at least 0.32 lei/ liter, even though some of them changed prices in two stages and with a slight delay. Thus, from the data available on the Price Monitor platform, it appears that OMV Petrom, Rompetrol and Lukoil have lowered the prices at the pump with the full value of the excise reduction, from the first day of the year, for both petrol and diesel.

MOL applied, on January 1, reductions greater than those resulting from the reduction of excise duties: for petrol, 36% of the stations lowered prices by 0.32 lei/ liter, the rest applying reductions between 0.34-0.42 lei/ liter, while for diesel only 43% of the stations lowered their prices by 0.32 lei, the rest applying discounts between 0.34-0.40.

In the Gazprom network, fuel prices were reduced in two stages: 0.22 lei / liter on December 31 and 0.10 lei/ liter on January 1, 2020.

SOCAR fully transferred the excise duty decrease in prices, but with a slight delay, the changes being applied on January 3. In contrast, on January 7, most companies raised the pump prices of all products with 0.04 lei/ liter, which could be the result of the increase in international quotations of petroleum products from the previous period.