Hungary runs out of some types of fuel at 700 gas stations each week

Hungary’s hundreds of fuel stations are stagnant and many gas stations suffer from product shortages on weekdays. Some experts say the situation will not be resolved immediately. But no one understands why, as companies continue to say they can meet demand.

Zsolt Hernádi, CEO of a major oil and gas company in Central Europe, gave many reasons behind the slump in supply last Friday. He mentioned fuel limits, technical reasons, war in Ukraine, imbalanced supply and demand, and price caps introduced by the government. As a result, the MOL Group has reduced the amount of fuel available for purchase to 50 liters per day. Those who buy more will have to pay the market price instead of the government fixed 480 HUF (1.2 EUR) per liter. Austria’s OMV and Lukoil, the second largest retailers in Hungary, were decided later as well.

Experts find the reason for the CEO of MOL strange.

The government set a fuel price cap on February 28th. As a result, fuel importers have left the Hungarian market because their businesses have become unprofitable. However, Zsolt Hernádi said on March 10 that there was no problem with the supply.

At the end of May, the government banned foreign cars from buying fuel at a price of 480 forints per liter. Therefore, the demand has decreased significantly, Népszava I have written. There was no change on the supply side either. Thanks to the government, MOL can buy and use cheap Russian crude oil. In addition, the government has released some of Hungary’s strategic fuel reserves to support OMV. The Austrian company is suffering from the consequences of an explosion at the Schwechat refinery.

OMV told Népszava that it faces logistics challenges. Therefore, fueling gas stations in time is still a problem for them. MOL’s Százhalombatta refinery exploded on June 14, but the company resolved it by June 23. Since then, it has been operating at full capacity and MOL has not asked the government for fuel reserves. Népszava says Hungarian farmers have stored large amounts of diesel after a price cap panic. Therefore, there is no diesel panic in Hungary.

Nevertheless, experts estimated the number of fuel stations suffering from product shortages, at least on weekdays, to be 500-700.

MOL and OMV have admitted that some products are missing in the last few weeks. But it only lasted for a few hours. Ottó Grád, Executive Director of the Hungarian Petroleum Association, confirmed that some products were expected to be in short supply, but for no reason.

One source at Népszava said the real reason behind the stagnation in supply was simple. With a price limit of 480 forint per liter, sales in this sector are no longer profitable.

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sauce: Népszava