In 3 min. and 48 sec. the deputies of the energy committee approved in the second reading the changes in the Law on stocks of oil and oil products

During a meeting of 3 minutes and 48 seconds, the deputies from the Energy Committee approved the changes to the Law on Oil Stocks and Oil Products in the second reading. The statement about the time of discussion and voting was made by the Chairman of the Energy Commission, Delyan Dobrev. As already emphasized at the first meeting, the amendments bring back the legal texts repealed on October 13. The provision obliging economic operators to store 100% of stocks of oil and oil products for emergency situations only on the territory of Bulgaria is repealed. The reason for this is that such an obligation would make it more difficult to import fuels, reduce competition and create conditions for higher fuel prices. In their reasons, the petitioners represented by MPs Delyan Dobrev and Yordan Tsonev point out that this legal text is interpreted by some political and economic analysts as a lobbying amendment in favor of a certain commercial enterprise (Lukoil) associated with the Russian Federation, as comments on the relevant European directive on the text.

However, the amendments are more concerned with the increase of the sanctions, to incredibly high levels, in case of refusal of a licensed warehouse keeper to provide use of storage capacity. In particular, the approved changes to the Oil and Oil Products Stocks Law provide for sanctions from BGN 750,000 to BGN 1.5 million for refusing to store oil or fuels in a given excise warehouse. In practice, the sanction is increased several times, given the current ones - from BGN 500 to BGN 2,000.

The proposal of the PP-DB MP Radoslav Ribarski to drop the entire paragraph 11 was also accepted. The text provided that from June 30 the stocks of oil and oil products stored on the territory of other member states of the European Union may be up to 70 per cent of the individually determined stock levels for the relevant categories of oil products and oil of the obliged persons.

The voted changes make it possible for the reserves of oil and oil products in the country to be 50% in the country and the same amount abroad.