Petrol market: Government fraud and stabilizing monopoly

In the February 28 report on the implementation process and outcomes of the government program, the Government pointed out that Armenia has made unprecedented progress in terms of economic freedom and competition, and changes in the sugar, banana, diesel fuel and petrol markets were presented as examples.

According to the report, in some cases the shares of dominant companies in the market have dropped a few times.

The Fact Investigation Platform has already addressed the sugar, banana and diesel markets, and revealed that data on some commodity types in the report are false.

Let us address the petrol market.

According to the government report, the share of the largest company importing petrol dropped to 29 percent at the end of 2018 (compared to previous 43 percent).

Let us first of all try to understand what was going on in this market in 2017.

Four companies imported petrol to Armenia in 2017: CPS Oil Corporation LLC, Flash LLC, AB Export LLC and Max Petrol CJSC.

These companies imported more than 142 thousand tons of petrol in 2017. The shares of the companies are given in the figure.

As we can see, two of the importing companies occupied 99.3 percent of the market in 2017. These were CPS Oil Corporation LLC (52.6%) and Flash LLC (46.7%).

According to the data of the State Revenue Committee, 5 companies imported petrol in 2018. Moreover, Max Petrol CJSC left the market. Instead, Platinum Oil LLC and Rosneft Export LLC appeared in the market.

These companies imported a total amount of more than 138 thousand tons of petrol to Armenia in 2018.

As shown in the figure, 2 large players continue to remain in the market – CPS Oil Corporation LLC and Flash LLC. Moreover, the share of the company occupying 52.6% of the market in 2017 has increased to 58.2 percent in contrast to the data published in the government report (29%).

Thus, it can be stated that in the government report references to fight against monopolies in some cases do not correspond to the reality, and in the petrol market, despite the arrival of new importers, the polarization of the market has become deeper. The share of the company occupying a dominant position in the petrol market did not drop by 43% in 2018, reaching 29%. Rather, it has increased from 52.6 to 58.2%.