Liquid oil gas marking starts in 2015 - What do fuel marking results in the first year show?

For years, drivers have not believed in fuel they tank at gas stations and now, after a year since marking program started, they can be sure that illegal fuel from refinery really got to gas stations. Nanoinspekt which in consortium with SGS Belgrade and Authentix, started oil derivatives marking process February 1, 2014, confirmed it for eKapija.

After 12 months since the Fuel marking program started, , more than 2,4 billion liters of fuel has been marked and in only five months, i.e. by the end of June 2014, profit growth of EUR 34 m was generated for the budget of Serbia compared to 2013.

Oil derivatives marking is a process of adding certain quantity of markets in oil derivatives for alignment and control of oil derivatives market flow. Fuel which arrives at the market illegally has a marker in it. This way, control is simplified i.e. if there is no marker, it is clear it is not illegal. More precisely, it is not important that only there is a marker in fuel but that the concentration is at appropriate level.

This way, adding irregular fuel into regular is prevented. This kind of mix contains a marker but in smaller concentration which would automatically point out at mixing. In any case, if unmarked or “washy” fuel is found at a gas station, rigorous penalty follows which can total up to three million dinars with a ban to work for up to three years.

According to market inspection data after a year, 979 controls where 3.143 fuel samples were checked were carried out.

By the end of 2014, somewhat more than 611.000 liters of fuel were withdrawn from the market. Out of that, most of it, 510.000 liters of diesel fuel and there were also 13.000 liters of liquid of unknown content.

- Dispute has been initiated against the companies where irregular fuel was found and where they can be punished at the court “in line with effective legislation “in the Republic of Serbia.

Presence of "irregular" fuel at the market last year decreased drastically. According to information of SGS Belgrade, representative of consortium in charge of providing marking services, in May last year, 7% of controlled samples showed negative result i.e. showed at illegal fuel origin. In September already, their share decreased to 1, 5 percent and decreasing trend continued by the end of the year when it totaled 0,9. In January this year only 0,3 % out of total sample number is negative.

Nanoinspekt mentions that the basic program objective would be that Serbia, through fight against grey economy, pours higher profit from excises and taxes.

- Fuel price did not go up for marking program implementation – marking price is RSD 0,28 per liter or 0,2% of the average price per liter, it does not affect the price significantly but brings millions.

In mid-October 2014, marking of liquid oil gas at some energy entities started while in mid-January 2015 the process was set up at all locations defined by the Ministry of energy.

- The plan is to continue in 2015 with intensive controls of liquid fuels, 1.600 controls for each kind of fuel were planned. Apart from that, in the second half of the year, control of liquid oil fuel starts the moment target marker concentration in it is reached.