Today in Russia there are about forty million cars and they consume a huge amount of fuel. Gasoline prices today worry every car owner, without exception, since the unstable situation in the foreign exchange market strongly affects them.
What constitutes the price of gasoline
It turns out that the main price of gasoline is formed by the amount of taxes that oil companies pay to the state. They account for about 60% of the cost of gasoline. These include value added taxes, excise taxes on petroleum products, mineral extraction tax, income and property taxes. Refining and distribution costs are ten percent and 15 percent, respectively. The cost of crude oil in the price of gasoline in Russia is only 15%.
The exact opposite picture is developing with the price of gasoline in the USA. There, taxes account for only 11% of the total price. Nine and seven percent are for processing and distribution. And as much as 73% of the price is accounted for by the cost of crude oil. These indicators of the distribution of prices determine why, with a decrease in the price of oil, the price of gasoline in Russia does not change, while in the USA it falls.
Gasoline price forecast for 2015
Both domestic experts and Western analysts predict an increase in gasoline prices in Russia in 2015. The price will increase by an average of 10-15%, which will amount to an increase of about 3-4 rubles per liter of gasoline. The price of diesel fuel will also increase by an average of 15-20%, which will increase the price per liter by 4 rubles.
First, the rise in prices will be affected by the "tax maneuver", which provides for an increase in the duty on the extraction of crude oil. Secondly, the government increased the excise tax on the production of 4th and 5th grade gasoline. These tax increases form the main increase in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel in Russia.
Also, the unstable economic situation in the foreign exchange market affects the price growth. Due to fluctuations in exchange rates, the duty on oil exports also rises, which oil companies are forced to compensate by raising the price of oil sales in Russia.
Thirdly, oil production will also grow, as in previous years. In 2014, crude oil production increased by 0.4%, and in 2015 production is expected to increase by 1%. This is a small percentage and cannot significantly affect the decrease in the price of gasoline.
As Vladimir Putin noted, an increase in fuel prices in Russia is inevitable, since the price of oil exports fell, which caused an increase in its domestic price.
As a result, now we have an increase in the price of gasoline since the beginning of the year by only 0, 4-0, 5%, which looks quite good compared to fluctuations in the exchange rate of the dollar and euro, a decrease in the price of oil exports, and a cycle of tax increases. But according to the assurances of experts, such a small increase in prices will be only temporary, and in the second half of the year prices will creep up. The reason for such a small increase in prices now can only be the reluctance of oil companies to raise it immediately.
