Hungarian petrol stations in huge trouble over fuel price cap extension!

Dual pricing at petrol stations is not sustainable. This is the biggest problem for small petrol stations, which are still not adequately compensated by the government for the cost of the price freeze, the president of the Independent Petrol Stations Association told Inforadio.

Small petrol stations suffer

Every day, they (small petrol stations – ed.) are struggling with the elements, one of which is double pricing, said Gábor Egri. Among the problems arising from dual pricing, he said that there should be a credible examination at petrol stations of who is entitled to the official price and who is subject to the market price, but it is impossible to do this.

All the more so, because in an authentic inspection, they would have to check the licence plates and the registration documents, but in the latter case they have not been given any information about what kind of document samples exist, said the president of the Independent Petrol Stations Association, as portfolio.hu reported. He said that

“looking at number plates and seeing a registration document being floated in front of someone is not credible”.

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Abuses

Gábor Egri also pointed out that official and market prices are very different (the market price of diesel is around HUF 820 (EUR 2.05), while the official price is HUF 480 (EUR 1.20)) and that many abuses can result from customers buying petrol at official prices and then reselling it at market prices.

Egri also thinks it is a real danger that illegal fuel smuggling could boom in neighbouring countries.

What could be the solution?

Egri would see the solution in the fact that small petrol stations would become strategic partners in the country’s supply, since in addition to Mol, these are the petrol station networks or individual petrol stations that have a business and retail fuel sales only in Hungary.

He stressed that while small petrol stations can focus only on the Hungarian market, international companies think in bigger terms and may close their Hungarian operations if they are loss-making, as infostart.hu reports.

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Subsidy should be increased

The Independent Petrol Stations Association also proposed that the subsidy scheme for small stations should be increased from the current HUF 20 (EUR 0.050) to at least HUF 40 (EUR 0.1), which would still cover the cost of transport, so the amount that petrol stations would have left over would be HUF 10-12 (EUR 0.025-0.030), or at most HUF 16 (EUR 0.040) per litre, which would be “not enough to cover the electricity bill”.