Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Khristenko Goes after Fuel Prices
Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko will have an unscheduled meeting with executives from Russia's leading oil companies today, where a moratorium on fuel price raises for the winter will be discussed. Gasoline prices rose at a record high pace for the year in the first week of November at 0.4 percent, following repairs at a number of oil refineries in Russia and in keeping with a rise in world gasoline prices.
The first time fuel prices were frozen was in October 2005 at a meeting with German Gref, then minister of economic development and trade. LUKOIL was formally the initiator of the agreement. It announced a price freeze until the end of the year. In February 2006, the government announced that it had no authority to extend the moratorium, and the oil companies issued a list of conditions, partly concerning taxation, under which they would be willing to continue to hold prices at the same level. The government met most of those conditions, including a differentiated mineral usage tax.
In September 2006, another meeting on price freezing was called by Mikhail Fradkov, then prime minister. The oilmen then made a new series of proposals to stimulate investment and lower pricing pressure. A compromise was reached. They agreed to raise fuel prices no more than within the level of annual inflation, that is, 9 percent. This time sources say, there will be no bartering.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 19, 2007
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