Here are the government’s new measures on fuel stations

Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said late on Thursday that sanctions should not be introduced against Russian energy. In response to a question, he said such sanctions would harm many European countries as badly or even more so than Russia. The Hungarian and Dutch prime ministers and the German chancellor share the view that “it is not Europe that we want to sanction”.

He added that they trusted “common sense would prevail” at the extraordinary summit in Paris because a significant number of member states, or possibly the majority, shared the same position.

Hungarian oil and gas company MOL’s president-CEO Zsolt Hernádi said that the company was able to fulfil all fuel demands in Hungary, refineries were working without interruption, and crude oil supplies to Hungary were undisturbed.

“Abuses” of the cap must stop,

he said. Petrol stations experienced a drastic increase in demand in recent times, partly as a result of the price cap but also because of consumers abusing the system as wholesale buyers migrate to retail petrol stations, he said. On an average day, petrol stations sell around 5 million litres of fuel, while in recent days this has tripled to around 15 million litres, he added.

The refinery of Százhalombatta is operating at full capacity and MOL’s reserves are sufficient, he said.

At the same time, he said triple demand “cannot be managed by conventional means”, not because there is not enough fuel but because they are not logistically prepared. Moltrans and the subcontractors operating fuel tank lorries are operating 24 hours a day, with 280 drivers and 120 fuel tank lorries.

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Still, Hungary’s fuel supplies system has not been designed for such high demand, he said. As a result, intervention is needed and consumers must be directed back to the locations where they had previously received fuel, Hernadi said. If this is not done, the situation cannot be handled using conventional methods, he added.