The government is taking measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic. millionaire scams committed by Piracy companies in fuel salesIt harms both law-abiding rival companies and the prices paid by end customers. The executive took advantage of the decree on multi-purpose economic measures approved by the Council of Ministers this Wednesday to introduce various reforms into the Hydrocarbons Law with the aim of putting an end to increasingly widespread unregulated practices.
The text of the royal decree emphasizes that “Increasing fraudulent practices have been detected in the liquid hydrocarbon sector due to non-compliance with sectoral obligations.” Many companies do not pay VAT or custom taxes and missed mandatory contribution payments to the Petroleum Products Strategic Reserves Authority. (Nuclei)To the Information System Biofuel Certification (SICBIOS) or National Energy Efficiency Fund (FNEE).
The Ministry of Ecological Transition, led by Vice-President Teresa Ribera, understands that the “rapid transformation of sector law in recent years necessitates an urgent review of the liquid hydrocarbon market”, given the emergence of previously unforeseen business models. The law and subsequent amendments were prepared as a draft and are not sufficiently regulated in the current legislation.
“This greatly facilitated fraud by some individuals This is companies that harm the rest of the sector and also have a direct impact on the consumer as they affect the final price of fuel,” the Government warns in the royal decree. The failure of some companies to pay “leaves them a Competitive advantage over other operators that comply with their obligations“It’s something that underscores the urgency of carrying out this regulatory review.”
The approved legal reform strengthens, among other things, the Ministry’s ability to impose sanctions on companies that fail to pay these mandatory contributions or all taxes, for example by withdrawing their official permits as operators in the sector or by taking urgent interim measures before completing the dossier. by temporarily disabling them.
Focus on retail
The government is focusing on a new regulation regarding retail distributors of petroleum products, understanding that this is the area where it is easiest to commit irregularities. On the one hand, they are now prohibited from supplying other distribution companies, acting as de facto wholesalers. The hydrocarbon law in its current form allowed retail distributors to supply other distributors.
“When this measure was implemented in 2015, it was thought that it could have a positive impact on both competition in the sector and final consumer prices, as it represented the opening of the fuel supply market to both operators and distributors. However, in practice since 2015 the effect has proven to be exactly the opposite,” says the Government.
On the other hand, a legislative amendment has also been introduced to clarify that it is not only wholesale companies that have access to pipeline networks or storage, as the current text of the rule implies, but retail distributors also use them and must comply with them. with the same obligations.
When the current Hydrocarbons Act was passed in 1998, wholesale operators were the only ones using the logistics infrastructure and supplying the remaining companies from tax warehouses. “The current text of the law is being used fraudulently in one way or another by some companies to bypass the obligations that apply to companies operating in the sector; Among these, there are companies that do not have retail distributors. to identify[la ley] Moreover, although they supply this without undertaking sectoral obligations such as blending biofuels or contributing to the national energy efficiency fund, they do not meet the conditions of being a wholesale operator.
In addition, there has been a steady increase in the number of companies operating as wholesale operators; This guarantees the supply of petroleum products for subsequent retail distribution in our country under conditions of free competition. and ten companies registered as wholesale operators. This is very different from the situation in 2015, when there was a much more limited number of wholesale operators on the market.
Complaints from oil companies
Oil companies are raising the alarm that ‘pirate’ companies are committing million-dollar fraud in fuel sales. The complaint is persistent and comes from afar, the giants of the sector gathered in the AOP employers’ association (Repsol, Cepsa, BP, Galp or Saras) and the complaints of independent groups integrated into the UPI association have intensified in recent months.
In addition to police and Treasury operations against VAT fraud in the hydrocarbon sector, the Government is aware that non-compliance with obligations on the use of biofuels has resulted in different oil operators having to contribute additional millions of dollars each year in compensatory payments. Funding: more than 94 million euros last year, 72.5 million in 2021 or almost 62 million euros in 2020.