The energy ministry does not expect crude oil trading via exchange to be launched soon, deputy energy minister Pavel Fedorov said Friday.
"In the long term the ministry definitely supports creating a regulated crude oil trading exchange in Russia, but the whole process ought to be gradual," he told reporters at the sidelines of an event in the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange, or SPIMEX.
"We consider it unreasonable to order oil producers to start selling a significant percentage of their crude via commodity exchanges in the short term. Their delivery logistics are too complicated," he said.
Domestic crude usually trades in Russia through direct negotiations between two parties and via tenders.
OIL PRODUCT TRADING
The energy ministry is working on a draft amendment to a federal law that would allow municipal bodies and state authorities to buy oil products via commodity exchange, Fedorov said at the SPIMEX event.
"[The amendment] would create, for example, a mechanism for [authorities of a Russian] regions to fix the price of oil products they need to buy to replenish their winter stocks," Fedorov said.
In the next few weeks, the energy ministry and the Federal Antimonopoly Service expect to sign a joint order on the percentage of oil products Russia's key producers must sell via commodity exchange, Fedorov said Friday.
The FAS placed on its website a draft of the joint order late Thursday.
The draft orders oil producers that occupy a dominant position in Russia's oil product segments to sell no less than 10% of their total gasoline output via commodity exchange. The threshold is set at 10% for jet fuel, 5% for diesel and at 2% for fuel oil.
Russia's commodity exchange floors are to trade no less than 10% of the total domestically sold oil products, the draft order says.
In early 2011, the Russian government recommended that no less than 15% of domestic oil products should be sold via SPIMEX.
In 2011 Russia produced 69.6 million mt of diesel, 36.2 million mt of gasoline and 70.4 million mt of fuel oil, according to the energy ministry.
In the same year Russia exported 35.4 million mt of diesel and 3.1 million mt of gasoline, according to the country's customs service.
Around 80% of fuel oil produced in Russia is exported, industry sources say.
Oil products are mostly traded on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange and the Moscow-based Interregional Oil and Gas Industry Exchange, both of which started trading operations in 2008.
In line with the regulators' plans, SPIMEX tested crude trading in August 2011, with 1,000 mt of crude oil changing hands for the first time. No crude oil deals have been conducted since then.
