Draft amendment to Law on Petroleum Products Market approved in first reading

Chisinau, 13 August /MOLDPRES/- Parliament approved today, in its first reading, the draft amendment to the Law on the Petroleum Products Market, drafted in order to eliminate the existing deficiencies in the legislation in force that generate risk situations. The law will expressly state that the maximum retail prices of main petroleum products are set by the National Agency for Energy Regulation (ANRE), based on the Methodology for calculating and applying prices for petroleum products.

MPs propose that the maximum retail price be set for the main products of the standard type (COR 95 petrol and diesel) and be calculated and published daily on the ANRE website. According to the authors of the document, as a result, the wholesale market for fuels, as well as the retail prices of liquefied gas and all other types of products except the basic ones, will become free.

The retail sale of other types of main petroleum products than those for which maximum prices are set will be permitted only on condition that the standard station and products of the standard type are sold. Under these conditions, the state will provide the consumer with petroleum products of strict necessity at regulated, reasonable, transparent, non-discriminatory and easy to compare prices, respecting the established quality parameters, and on the other hand will offer them the possibility to freely choose alternative products.

Also, in order to relax the conditions for obtaining the license, it is proposed to reduce five times the mandatory storage capacity that an importer must meet, namely from 5 thousand m3 to 1000 m3. At the same time, another legislative initiative is needed to ensure the energy security of the state in terms of providing oil products in crisis situations.

Another provision of the project refers to the elimination of the need to hold an amount of at least eight million lei equity, as this minimum amount prevents the appearance on the market of several economic agents, consider the authors of the document.

The project establishes that ANRE may adjust the commercial margin in case of occurrence of factors that could not be foreseen at the time of the previous approval and that it may intervene in the margin structure not more than 10% of the average actually registered by the operators.

"The changes made will be beneficial for all parties involved: consumers, operators and regulators," concluded MP Vladimir Bolea, one of the authors of the legislative initiative.

Photo: Parliament