New fuel standards from the Ministry of Energy: we expect high-quality gasoline and low prices

On September 23, Ukraine adopted a resolution on new requirements for the quality of gasoline for cars, as well as diesel, marine and boiler fuel. Acting Energy Minister Olga Buslavets said that the main goal of this project is to implement and introduce international standards and EU directives in relation to fuel and the sphere as a whole. 

The main task is to create a market for high-quality fuel

As stated in the resolution, this project should increase the volume of high-quality gasoline in Ukraine, which fully complies with international and European standards, environmental requirements. The innovations should significantly simplify the overall conduct of activities in the field of petroleum products in our market, as well as make it more competitive with European products, according to the Ministry of Energy.

The main points are considered to be clear norms in relation to the composition of fuel (sulfur in liquid fuels), as well as various terms and concepts have been clarified in the documents in order to avoid problems and misunderstandings in the regulation.

“The resolution makes it possible to create more favorable and correct conditions for Ukraine to comply with European requirements on emissions of substances from the use of petroleum products into the atmosphere,” the government says.

“All changes are more cosmetic”

Many market participants did not take the news joyfully, as they believe that according to the documentation, these norms should have been observed before. For sellers and users, little will change. 

“In fact, nothing has changed. All the so-called “edits” that have been adopted (possibly with the exception of new requirements for marine fuel) are more “cosmetic”, external, and do not affect the quality of fuels. The biggest and most significant change is to increase the maximum filterability temperature for diesel fuel. It used to be up to -5 degrees Celsius, but now it has been raised to +5 degrees Celsius,” says Leonid Kosyanchuk, an expert on the petroleum products market, ex–president of the Association of Operators of the Ukrainian Petroleum Products Market.

Tankers also claim that changes to the technical regulations have a greater impact on the quality of marine and boiler fuel, rather than motor fuel, and the remaining requirements for diesel and gasoline are there and in fact have been working since 2013. Moreover, they met international and European standards before. And this means that nothing will change now - some incredibly high-quality fuel will not appear on the market, but there will be the same fuel and the same suppliers will bring it.

“Almost all legal fuel and official suppliers bring us fuel that meets these standards without innovations. In addition, the geography of transportation and supplies will not change, and the cost of diesel gasoline at gas stations will also remain the same,” the Oil and Gas Association of Ukraine says.

So it turned out that the new technical regulations did not change anything - neither for manufacturers nor for carriers. Only the process of issuing a quality passport for importers has changed, and nothing will affect users at all. Another “significant change” is that sellers will officially be called “distributors”, and buyers and consumers will be called “users”, and gasoline that does not contain bioethanol is designated "E0". 

No protection from low-quality fuel

Buyers and users can only be protected from buying bad, low-quality and illegal fuel by buying at legal and official gas stations. Everyone can ask at the gas station, any gas station for a document that confirms the quality of fuel (quality passport) and ask to provide a receipt for fuel RRO.

There will be no changes in the cost of products and there is no need to fear price increases. Of course, it will be much better for international norms if Ukraine provides technical regulations with prescribed requirements, but nothing will affect us.