Fuel damper payments to be based on indicative prices in Tax Code framework - Russian MinFin

MOSCOW. Oct 14 (Interfax) - Fuel damper payments to Russian oil companies will now be based on indicative prices within the Tax Code framework, the Finance Ministry's press office told Interfax.

Asked how the ministry will calculate damper payments for oil companies following the moratorium on zeroing out the fuel damper, the press service said: "The damper will be calculated in accordance with current tax legislation using established average wholesale prices for motor fuel, without applying the condition on permissible deviations from average wholesale prices for the tax period."

The Tax Code framework currently sets indicative prices at 60,450 rubles per tonne of gasoline and 57,200 rubles per tonne of diesel fuel.

A decree of President Vladimir Putin was published on Sunday which introduced a moratorium on zeroing out the fuel damper from October 2025 to May 2026.

The budget pays the damper as a subsidy to oil companies so that they restrain domestic fuel prices amid high export netbacks.

Prior to the moratorium, if wholesale fuel prices in Russia rose 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 was not paid. Such a situation 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.

Payments from the Russian budget to oil companies under the fuel damper mechanism in September 2025 amounted to 715.5 billion rubles. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov previously said that damper payments to oil companies are expected to be 1.4 trillion rubles below plan in 2025, at approximately 2.6 trillion rubles. "Prices have fallen, and accordingly, revenues have become somewhat lower, so we will return less to oil companies," he said.

Oil companies received 1.815 trillion rubles from the budget through the damper mechanism in 2024, while they received 1.588 trillion rubles in 2023, 2.171 trillion rubles in 2022 and 674.5 billion rubles in 2021. In 2020, due to market conditions, oil companies contributed 356.6 billion rubles to the budget under the fuel damper. In 2019, the budget refunded 282.2 billion rubles to oil companies through the damper.

The fuel damper has been in effect in Russia since 2019 and is the difference between the export price of fuel and the indicative domestic price, specified by law. The state pays oil companies if this difference is positive, and exports become more profitable than deliveries to the domestic market, while oil companies pay the state if the difference is negative.