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Heads of Russian Oil Firms Unanimously Agree to Freeze Petrol Prices - Ministry

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 September 2005, 06:00 CDT

Text of report by Russian Ekho Moskvy radio on 20 September

[Presenter] Heads of Russian leading oil companies have made a decision to freeze petrol prices on the domestic market until the end of 2005. The decision was made at the meeting with Russian Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko. The ministry's official representative Stas Naumov made public the details of the meeting on NTV channel.

[Naumov] Virtually unanimously, without any previous arrangement and absolutely voluntarily, heads of oil companies said that as of today they are ready to introduce a moratorium on [petrol] price growth in their companies. Under their plans the moratorium is to last until the end of this year. We totally disagree with assessments made so far that the price growth is inevitable.

[Presenter] Naumov said that the heads of oil companies had agreed to freeze prices without preconditions. However, the president of the Russian Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists, Gennadiy Shmal, told ITAR-TASS news agency today that the support of the government is necessary to maintain the prices. There is also an option of compensating oil companies' losses with tax remissions, Shmal added.

Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union

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