Moratorium on zeroing out fuel damper will help stabilize domestic market price situation - Russian Energy Ministry
MOSCOW. Oct 13 (Interfax) - Introducing a moratorium on zeroing out the fuel damper will preserve the calculation of the damper surcharge on motor fuel for its producers and will help stabilize the price situation in the domestic motor fuel market, the Energy Ministry's press service said.
In turn, exempting diesel fuel obtained by mixing its summer grades with aviation kerosene from excise tax makes it possible to increase the economic efficiency of producing frost-resistant grades of diesel fuel, raising their maximum filterability and solidification temperature.
"The Energy Ministry and the Russian government consider it an absolute priority to fully meet the fuel needs of citizens and industry and continue to manually work to maintain a stable situation in the domestic petroleum products market, using the entire range of required tools for this. Thus, earlier, temporary bans on the export of motor gasoline and diesel fuel for non-producers were introduced until the end of 2025. This measure prevents the resale for export of fuel intended for the domestic market," the press service said.
Earlier on Sunday, a decree of President Vladimir Putin was published which introduced a moratorium on zeroing out the fuel damper from October 2025 to May 2026. The document also exempted the production of winter diesel fuel by mixing diesel fuel grades with aviation kerosene outside oil refineries from excise tax.
The budget pays the damper as a subsidy to oil companies so that they restrain domestic fuel prices amid high export netbacks. However, if wholesale fuel prices in Russia rise too much and on average for a month deviate from the prices established in the Tax Code (by more than 10% for gasoline and 20% for diesel), then the damper for that month is not paid. Such a situation has already occurred twice. During the height of the price crisis in the fuel market in September 2023, oil companies did not receive damper payments from the budget due to high exchange prices for both gasoline and diesel. And for August 2025, oil companies were left without the gasoline damper.
Until recently, regulators were discussing the issue of raising the price threshold for zeroing out the fuel damper - retroactively from September by 10 percentage points. Meanwhile, the head of Gazprom Neft, Alexander Dyukov, said that the fuel damper requires more substantial adjustments. In particular, the Russian government needs to be granted the right to suspend the zeroing out of payments under force majeure circumstances, Dyukov said.
In recent weeks, the average price of 92-octane gasoline and diesel fuel on the SPB Exchange has been at record levels amid planned and unplanned repairs at refineries. Russia has a ban on gasoline exports for all market participants; from October 1, a ban on diesel exports for non-producers, as well as on marine fuel and other gasoils, came into force. In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak sent proposals for additional support measures for the domestic fuel market to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. A moratorium on zeroing out the fuel damper from October to May has been introduced.
Winter diesel in Russia is produced, among other methods, by mixing summer diesel and aviation kerosene at oil depots. Several years ago, an additional excise tax was introduced for such compounding - the producer pays the difference in excise taxes between kerosene and diesel. However, the amounts of additional charges turned out to be very large, many market participants abandoned this type of business, and as a result, the supply of winter diesel from oil depots significantly decreased. The published presidential decree abolished the additional excise tax on this type of winter diesel production.
