Uncontrolled oil market in Kosovo, prices up to 25 cents in four months

According to them, oil prices in Kosovo range from 1.25 euros to 1.35 euros, while gasoline prices from 1.27 euros to 1.36 euros.

Fadil Berjan, chairman of the Kosovo Oil Association, tells Radio Free Europe that the level of these prices depends on determining its oil prices and derivatives from the Organisation of Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as international stock exchanges.

According to him, when there is reduced production of oil and its derivatives on world markets, then prices go up.

However, he values the latest momentum strangely.

“Every day, during the entire month of January and this month [shortly], also in the months of December and November [of last year] there has been only growth. There's never been a discount. This is weird and it never happened. But this is happening right now. Every day we have a $25 increase for ours. The discount was only last night [on February 7th] for a dollar less. This does not carry at all”, Beryan says of Radio Free Europe.

According to international media reports, rising prices have affected geopolitical tensions and growing inequality between the offer and demand.

Behrani says companies, which supply oil to Kosovo, buy this amount at a price of 1.21 euros per litre. This price, according to him, is high and reflects on the high price of retail in consumers.

Berjan, without giving too much detail, says there are indicators that oil and gasoline prices can mark decline in the coming days, because these prices can mark declines in world markets as well.

Users “return” to free prices
But, Zahir Latifi, a taxi driver in Pristina, is sceptical. He tells Radio Free Europe that so-called experiences have shown that even when prices fall on the stock market, Kosovo oilers delay the price cuts. Furthermore, he adds, prices do not return to the preliminary level.

These [Kosovo militants] are not delaying, but they do not release him at all. Unless the price on the stock market falls to extremes, it's released for 5 or 10 cents. These guys are trying to release them. To expensive are first, meanwhile, to release, not”, says Latifi.

The chairman of the Kosovo Oil Association, Berjan, does not deny that the price drop in Kosovo is delayed after the stock market's price decrease.

It's true that when there's price hikes, it happens faster. When they land, it goes slower. Businesses are called in because they have stocks. If, guess what, I've got a high price today and tomorrow the prices fall and have to sell at a low price... that's the contradiction that businesses always reason on having high-priced stocks”, Berryani says.

Price Fixing Doubts

After the recent increase in oil and gasoline prices, some voice doubts that oilmen are setting prices.

A citizen in Pristina who introduced himself to REL, named Africa, says that the prices of oil and gasoline of various companies in the suburbs or outside the city of Pristina, differ with prices offering gas stations within the city.

According to him, supply prices even distinguish at various points in the same company. But, as he says, within the city or in areas where supplies of various companies are found in less than ten miles [10 km], fuel prices are all the same.

The “these around us are blocking prices. They have the same. They're talking, once they're expensive at one [fuel pump] they do everything the same. Just now that it's expensive, all at once the same price”, says the refrain.

Berjan says there is no knowledge or information oil companies plot prices in certain areas.

Competition Authority Unfunctional

Curing prices or agreements, even silent, for price leveling, is prohibited with the Law for Protection of Competition in Kosovo.

For monitoring such phenomena, the competent institution is the Kosovar Competition Authority, which directly responds to the Kosovo Assembly, while the commission of this authority is proposed by the Government of Kosovo.

Since 9 June last year, the Kosovo Competition Authority has been dysfunctional because the chairman, deputy chairman and three members of this commission have expired for five years.

The government has not yet proposed the Kosovo Assembly to the new composition of this commission, and as a result, the market has remained without supervision of this authority.

Former head of the Kosovo Competition Authority Valon Prestreshi tells Radio Free Europe that during the period 2016-2021, practices have shown that oilmen have fixed prices.

He says that at the time, the Kosovar Competition Authority has investigated 14 oil companies in Kosovo, with the claim that they have had co-ordinated and silent agreements to fix prices and keep them up, despite the fact that there have been discounts on the international stock exchange.

After the investigation, the Kosovo Competition Authority, with the final decision, has punished these companies with a 4m-euro fine.

“For actuality, Authority is dysfunctional, because there is no commission that would exercise its duty to monitor certain markets. In my opinion, as the former chairman of this authority, most specific markets can be co-ordinated in terms of raising and fixing the price”, Prestreshi says.

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Selatin Kachanic, director of the non-governmental organisation “Consumer”, says the frequency of the derivative supply points in Kosovo fuels doubts about their survival prospects as businesses.

According to him, they are forced to fix prices, even without a verbal but silent agreement. The same situation, says Kachanik, is in other consumer supply markets.

“Uniform has already become the method of working among different producers, businessmen, and servants. It means, they already have a template and they don't need to sit down and talk. So it's the formula and they follow the formula. The signal [for price raising], usually recently, comes either through the global market or through the influence of pandemic”, Kachanic says of Radio Free Europe.

Government Silence for Functioning Competition Authority
Kosovo MP Ferat Shala, chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for Economy, Industry, Undertaking and Market, says that the Kosovo Government's proposal for the new composition of the Kosovo Competition Authority's governing commission has yet to be reached, though concerns about such a thing, as he says, have already been raised several times.

“As the Commission we have expressed, at least twice, these concerns and have asked the public [government] to meet the boards and offices of various regulators, but, unfortunately, until today we have no movement”, Shala says.

Radio Free Europe has been addressed to the Government of Kosovo with questions about what the reasons are that so far has not sent to the Kosovo Assembly proposals for the composition of the Kosovo Competition Authority commission, as well as whether it is likely to address the problem soon. Until the publication of this text, the Kosovo government has not returned answers.