Registration of Oil Products Transactions Fails to Attract Traders
In the first ten days of voluntary registration of over-the-counter oil products transactions, market participants did not submit a single contract, as reported by “Kommersant”. Starting from March 2027, this procedure will become mandatory. While the registration process aims to enhance the transparency of transactions, experts note that it will not resolve fuel shortages and will impose an additional burden on small traders.
Retail fuel prices are rising unevenly. According to Rosstat, during the week from August 31 to September 7, the average price of gasoline in Russia increased by 49 kopecks, reaching 78.25 rubles per liter, while diesel fuel rose by 4 kopecks to 88.44 rubles per liter. Fuel prices increased in 49 regions, while they decreased in nine regions. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, prices remained virtually unchanged for the week.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) positions the registration system as a tool for ensuring traceability in supply chains and creating more transparent pricing mechanisms. Based on the collected data, indicative prices by region are expected to be established, which will serve as benchmarks for controlling markups.
According to FAS representatives, as of September 10, there were no parties interested in voluntarily registering contracts.
However, they noted that in 2026, more than 50 companies registered transactions voluntarily each month, with a total volume exceeding 500,000 tons of oil products through small wholesale agreements.
An industry source views this initiative as an attempt to showcase regulatory activity in a situation where regulators are unable to address the main issue—saturating the domestic gasoline market in the aftermath of attacks on oil refineries. He estimates that the system will create significant operational costs for traders. Another market participant points out that the share of the largest trader is 5% of the exchange market or 1% of the Russian market. Therefore, he continues, there are no dominant players among traders, meaning that significant impact from registration on the market is not expected.
The registration of over-the-counter transactions alone will not serve as a long-term price control tool, states Sergey Tereshkin, CEO of Open Oil Market. In his opinion, manual regulation and constant monitoring require substantial resources from regulators and traders and do not provide incentives for lowering fuel costs. He is convinced that the statistics on over-the-counter sales cannot serve as a lever for price reduction; collecting data will only increase the administrative burden without ensuring market stabilization in the long term.
Managing Partner at NEFT Research, Sergey Frolov, believes that the new system will make the pricing chain more transparent but will not influence prices on its own. The regulator, he explains, will be able to see the terms of transactions and identify possible discrimination against independent participants; however, this will not eliminate the reasons for price increases in a supply-deficient environment. Additionally, the increased reporting may add to the burden on small traders and create further barriers for them.
Source: Kommersant
