Gas stations want to be fined for underfilling

18 July 2018

With a joyful ear motorists were Rosstandart

In early July, one of the most discussed developments in the automotive field has revealed the fact mass underfilling of gasoline. How did you find the study, 76% of gas stations regularly "weight wrong" motorists. Again revealed a crime, will be punished? Many were skeptical of the investigation: its author was made by the Federation of Russian car owners (FAR), which doesn't have any real authority. Now, however, in the fight against fraudsters came Rosstandart.

What is suggested in the Rosstandart

Initiative of the Federal Agency for technical regulation and Metrology (Rosstandart) is to assign penalties for underfill of fuel. The first time refueling is proposed to punish 1% of annual turnover, and at repeated infringement they can be deprived of 3 %.

Why we are talking about such low fines? First, the Deputy head of Rosstandart Alexey Kuleshov in conversation with the correspondent of "Kommersant FM" said that the purpose of this proposal is not closing the dishonest gas station. Their owners must think about the fact that you should play by the rules and not to cheat customers. However, even the detection of fraud should not be the question of bankruptcy or closure.

Second, even the sum of 1 or 3 % of annual turnover may be very important, because it is calculated not from net profit and from the total flow of incoming funds.

think in Russian fuel Union

Serious scale of the fraud is obvious to all, except for the Russian fuel Union. Executive Director Grigory Sergienko said that the problem with the incomplete filling of gasoline exaggerated: "Officials came up with a new punishment. Already are the fines in relation to failure to comply with the requirements of technical regulations. Just now they want to extend to metrological requirements. Meanwhile, the calculations of the public monitoring regarding the incomplete filling of fuel at filling stations is a useless scrap of paper. I was somewhat surprised by the position of Rosstandart, which is in the adoption of their initiatives regarding the increase in penalties is based on fake data obscure organizations obtained based on obscure techniques. In addition, the underfilling and the struggle they must engage in the Federal service, and he did the filling does not go, because there is no practice in these matters. As for infringements of metrological requirements, then it is the competence of Rosstandart. It can check every gas station, every three years, and after prior warning. Suddenly, he can come only if one of consumers turn to the Agency a complaint".

Help unexpected

It would seem, everything is logical: the owners of gas stations and their partners are not interested in the introduction of a new penalty. But there is one little detail that plays into the hands of ordinary motorists. When studying these results, we drew attention to the fact that the least number of violations were registered among the so-called vertically integrated oil companies (VINK). These include the largest fuel suppliers who not only sell it at gas stations, but also engaged in geological exploration, oil and gas extraction and processing, that is, carry out the entire chain of operations required to produce the final consumer products — gasoline and diesel fuel.

Hence a simple conclusion: the oil companies are interested in is to bring order to the market: if they break less often than others (underfilling was recorded only on one of the five filling stations), the machinations of other companies play against them.

The first positive signal has appeared in the Company supported the initiative of Federation of automobile owners of Russia in the suppression of the incomplete filling of fuel. However, most "RussNeft" has no retail business, so in this aspect, it is generally no risk.

It is hoped that other oil companies to join the initiative of Rosstandart.

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