Government says the crisis is “artificial” and blames “illegal exporters”.

Diesel is vanishing from retail filling stations in the central part of the Russian Federation, one of the world’s major producer of crude oil and fuels. Numerous witness and citizen journalism reports on Telegram – currently one of the most influential news channels in Russia – claim that motorists face hardship in filling their car tanks with diesel in the regions of Rostov, Astrakhan, Stavropol, and Krasnodar.

Mash, a popular Telegram channel, cites local residents as complaining of fuel shortages in Lipetsk and Tula regions as well as in the autonomous republics of Chuvashia, Tatarstan, and Mari El. 

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In Tula, for example, one filling station sells diesel only to legal entities such as public institutions and companies, and introduced special vouchers for AI-92 gasoline. In Chuvashia, some retailers sold diesel for 80 rubles (0.85 USD) per liter.

The government in Moscow quickly described the crisis as “artificial” and put the blame on "gray (illegal) exporters." Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov told RIA Novosti, an official news agency, that wholesalers have acquired gasoline and diesel for subsidized prices and then tried exporting fuel in order to obtain foreign currency. 

He estimated the volume of “shadow” exports at “millions of tons” since the beginning of this year and warned that the authorities intended to restrict the free export of petroleum products; only a handful of companies with government authorization would be allowed to trade gasoline and diesel for foreign currency.

Since January 2023, wholesale prices for gasoline in Russia have risen by more than 70%, and since last July diesel prices have increased too, by almost 40%. In wholesale trade, a liter of diesel now costs more than 70 rubles, and yet it is not available in many places, according to Moscow Times, an independent outlet. 

Oil wholesalers, in turn, have passed the blame on oil producers, which are withholding 2 million tons of gasoline and 3 million tons of diesel. They do so over fears that the prices will rise again starting this fall and this move would compensate their loss of government subsidies since 1 September.

While wholesale prices for oil products jumped, retail prices have remained capped.

A Reuters report quoted sources as saying in late August that Russia was facing shortages of fuel crucial for gathering the harvest in some parts of its southern breadbasket and the situation may get worse in coming months. 

Traders complained that the fuel market has been hit by a combination of different factors including maintenance at oil refineries, infrastructure bottlenecks on railways and the weaker roble which incentivizes fuel exports.

For the past two months commodity exchange diesel prices jumped on average by more than a quarter to 67,000 rubles (700 USD) per ton.

The decision to cut subsidies for refineries is likely worsen the availability of fuel.