The current year is not yet over, but subsidies to Russian oil refineries (refineries) have already exceeded the level of the previous 12 months. According to the Ministry of Finance, payments under the damper mechanism, reverse excise tax on oil, and investment surcharge for January-November 2024 reached 3.36 trillion rubles, surpassing the 2023 level by 15%.

While the damper is aimed at curbing gasoline and diesel prices, the other two types of subsidies are tied to the level of refinery modernization:

The reverse excise tax is intended for refineries where the output of oil products is at least 75% of the volume of crude oil processed.

Refineries with a ratio below 75% can receive the investment surcharge if the operating company, under an agreement with the regulator, commits to modernizing its facilities.

According to the trading company LLC “Resource,” subsidies under the investment surcharge have nearly doubled over the past two years: while payments amounted to 106 billion rubles in 2022, they reached 196 billion rubles in the first 11 months of 2024.

However, the issue is that, since 2022, modernization of Russian refineries has faced significant challenges. The European Union and Japan imposed sanctions on the supply of equipment for oil refining, making it more difficult for companies receiving the investment surcharge to fulfill their obligations for technical upgrades.

Under current regulations, refineries receiving this subsidy must commission facilities worth at least 50 billion rubles by the end of 2026. Otherwise, the entire amount of investment surcharge payments must be returned to the budget. Regulators are discussing extending this requirement to the early 2030s. However, I believe it would be more reasonable to temporarily suspend payments and compensate the shortfall by reducing fuel excise taxes.

According to the Federal Treasury, fuel excise revenues from gasoline and diesel fuel for the first 10 months of 2024 reached 951 billion rubles, with 240 billion rubles allocated to the federal budget and 711 billion rubles to regional budgets. Therefore, in my view, it would be appropriate to reduce fuel excise taxes by 25%, corresponding to the “federal” component of the rates. This could compensate for the losses refineries might incur from the suspension of investment surcharge payments.

Translated using ChatGPT

Sourse: companies.rbc.ru/news/uAi64p2unb/kak-optimizirovat-subsidii-dlya-npz/