Government changes fuel purchase rules in Hungary from today – UPDATED

Gergely Gulyás and Alexandra Szentkirályi held this week’s government info at an unusual time, today at 11 am. Therefore, some Hungarian media outlets thought there would be some extraordinary announcements, and they were right. Below you can read the details!

According to portfolio.hu, Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, announced the following government decisions:

• Only privately-owned cars, taxis and farm machinery, tractors can purchase fuel for the capped price (480 HUF per litre = 1.19 EUR per litre). The decree on the government decision will be published on Saturday, Gulyás said. Therefore, it will be in effect from noon!
• Whether a vehicle is eligible for the capped fuel price will be determined based on the barcode on its registration licence, he said.
• The CEO of the MOL said that they had to stop production in their refinery in Százhalombatta, which covers 100 percent of Hungary’s fuel needs, due to urgent maintenance works. Therefore, the government releases 1/4th of the country’s strategic reserves to supply domestic demand together with the MOL. The rest of the needs must be covered by import.
• Gas prices are skyrocketing. Therefore, the government wants to find alternatives, for example, they will increase lignite productio. Furthermore, forestry managers have also been ordered to increase production. The government also plans to reopen the recently closed Mátra Power Plant.
• Hungary did not vote for the EU’s gas decrease proposal, but it will comply with it.

Read also: Hungary’s inflation will be the highest in Europe in 2023!

On questions, Gulyás said that they would not like to release more from Hungary’s strategic reserves. However, if the production in Százhalombatta did not continue for whatever reasons, they would release more to secure supply.

He also said he was optimistic about a possible agreement with the European Union soon.

UPDATE 2 (8.00 pm)

As hitherto, the market price applies in the case of vehicles of over 7.5 tonnes with Hungarian license plates and vehicles with foreign license plates, as well as fuel cans, Gulyás said.

The quarter of strategic reserves and MOL reserves would only satisfy a portion of domestic needs, so the rest must be covered by expensive imports, he added. From December, refined diesel cannot be imported from Russia since it is covered by the EU embargo, he noted. Remaining reserves are only sufficient for residential consumption, he added.

Gulyás said the Hungarian Petroleum Association on July 27 told the government that

imports had dropped significantly,

and he mentioned high prices and problems with Austria’s Schwechat refinery which hampered procurement. Low water levels along the River Danube is also constricting the imports of fuel by barge, he added.

It is not known how long the Százhalombatta refinery will be shut down, Gulyás said, explaining that restarting the plant was a complicated process prone to errors, but MOL was keeping the government informed of progress. Fully 155 kilotonnes of diesel — 184 million liters — will be released in August, he said, 38 percent of strategic diesel reserves.

Read also MOL CEO said there would be fuel shortages in Hungary without import

Source: portfolio.hu, MTI