Transparency International Georgia has studied trends of Georgia’s motor fuel market in 2014-2018. As a result, the following findings were revealed:

Fuel quality

• In recent years, the government has tightened motor fuel standards. The Environmental Supervision Department periodically inspects gas stations - in December 2018, lab tests did not reveal the excess of lead in fuel.
• Transparency International Georgia has tested the fuel quality of eight companies through a private lab. All studied samples, except one, met all the standards set out in the Government decrees. The problematic petrol was purchased at B^P Oil, a gas station owned by Givi LLC. The Premium petrol of this company did not have enough octane number.

Fuel prices

• The Fluctuation of fuel prices mainly depends on world oil prices, the exchange rate and excise tax rates. In the last 5 years, the world oil price has decreased by 48%, but this was not reflected on local fuel prices as Georgian currency has depreciated by 53% and excise tax on fuel increased (from January 1, 2017, the excise tax per ton of petrol increased from GEL 250 to 500 and the excise tax per ton of diesel increased from GEL 150 to 400).

Market structure

• Competition on fuel market has increased since 2013. During 2012-2018, the number of fuel importers has increased from 7 to 57. During the same period,  market share of large companies decreased from 93.4% to 69.5%.
• Georgia fully depends on imported fuel. In 2018, the value of imported oil and oil products reached USD 864 million, which is 9.5% of the total imports.
• 83% of imported fuel comes from four countries: Russia, Romania, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Since 2014 the share of fuel imported from Russia has increased from 5% to 27%.  In 2014-2018, the cheapest fuel was  imported from Azerbaijan.

Budget revenues

• motor fuel business is an important source of budget revenue for the state. In 2018, taxes collected from this business amounted to GEL 1.3 billion, which is the tenth of the total tax revenue.
• Turnover of motor fuel retailers exceeded GEL 3 billion in 2017 and amounted to GEL 2.5 billion in 9 months of 2018. 10 050 people are employed in motor fuel retailing and this figure increases from year to year.

Public opinion poll

• A Public opinion poll of Transparency International Georgia has shown that nearly half of the population (46%) owns a car. The largest part of them (16%) consumes Rompetrol’s fuel, Gulf and SOCAR took second and third places with 14% each. When choosing the fuel, a customer pays the most attention to its price and then the quality.

The report was prepared with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway