Caught on the net: independent gas stations lost up to 70% of customers
Independent gas stations faced an outflow of customers — they lost up to 70% of consumers. People are moving massively to large networks, which threatens small players with closures that have already begun in 2025 and may continue this year. The reason is that last year, independent gas stations, against the background of local fuel shortages, raised gasoline prices by an average of 5-8 rubles per liter and above, which caused increased control by the Ministry of Energy and the Federal Antimonopoly Service. This has also affected consumer sentiment and preferences. What awaits the market next is in the Izvestia article.
Why Russians have become more likely to prefer large networks
By January 2026, independent gas stations had lost up to 50-70% of customers due to the outflow of consumers. Pavel Bazhenov, president of the Independent Fuel Union (NTS), told Izvestia about this, and two market participants also confirmed the information.
— During the crisis period from August to December 2025, most independent gas stations, due to local fuel shortages and delays in shipments, were forced to sell gasoline at a higher price than retail chains of oil companies. This was due to the fact that small players do not have sufficient margin of safety necessary to artificially restrain prices at the shelves of their gas stations in the face of the rapid growth of wholesale quotations. They cannot sell fuel below the purchase price for a long time, unlike WINCS (vertically integrated oil companies. — Ed.), — said the head of the NTS.
If from January to July 2025, for both Ai-92 and Ai-95, the price difference between independent gas stations and WINKS generally fit into the logic typical of the market — small players traded gasoline at a discount to WINK gas stations, then starting in August the situation changed. In October, on average, independent retailers sold a liter of gasoline 4-5 rubles more expensive than oil companies, the NTS said. In some regions, this difference was even greater: for example, in the Trans-Baikal Territory, prices at private gas stations were 9.5 rubles per liter higher than at VINKov gas stations, they added.
— Our monitoring recorded a difficult situation in 17 regions where the price difference was higher than 6 rubles per liter. This was the reason for the transition of many customers to Winky. Starting from November, the situation with the price difference began to improve, and on average in the country we can say that it has been reduced to zero. However, in December, some large gas station chains launched various New Year discounts and promotions, as a result, independent gas stations did not see the return of departed customers. Thus, individual small market participants face the risk of closure, as was the case last year," Pavel Bazhenov said.
The President of the NTS clarified that the infrastructural share of independent gas stations in the retail fuel market of the Russian Federation is about 60%, in some remote regions this figure is even higher. Their possible closure could negatively affect the availability of fuel for citizens, especially where the presence of winks is small, he concluded.
As Izvestia wrote, in 2025, a number of gas stations were forced to stop or limit the supply of gasoline amid shortages and difficulties with fuel shipments. Individual gas stations had to raise prices above inflation. At that time, some non-network gas stations in the regions raised prices by about 10%, or by 5-8 rubles to the price list of network operators and higher: such cases were reported in the Tambov, Tver, and Lipetsk regions. The Ministry of Energy and the regional departments of the Federal Antimonopoly Service began sending requests to the owners of gas station networks demanding to justify the increase in fuel prices. The agencies also requested information on the availability of fuel reserves and on the facts of supply disruptions.
Izvestia sent inquiries to the Ministry of Energy, as well as to business representatives.
The FAS reported that it continues to monitor pricing in the wholesale and retail segments of the fuel market.
— Retail prices are monitored at 12,000 gas stations. In case of detection of unjustified price increases, the service applies antimonopoly response measures, they clarified to Izvestia.
The agency, together with the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, will also continue to analyze the trading behavior of market participants and work out further measures to prevent peak values during fuel trading, the FAS concluded.
— Customers have been leaving for wines for a long time due to the imbalance of the wholesale and retail markets. Unfortunately, the damper, although it works as a tool to reduce wholesale prices, cannot guarantee positive margins at gas stations. And prices there today do not depend on the market — they are limited to rising inflation, and inflation according to Rosstat, which is significantly lower than the increase in costs of a particular industry," Andrey Romanchuk, a member of the expert council of the All—Russian Gas Station of Russia Competition, told Izvestia.
The Russian authorities are trying to prevent the price of gasoline in retail from rising above the annual inflation rate or to keep these figures close. This is realized through the pressure of regulators, primarily the Federal Antimonopoly Service, on oil companies. The damping mechanism was introduced in January 2019 to curb domestic fuel prices. If the export price of gasoline and diesel is higher than the nominal domestic price, the government compensates companies for part of this difference so that they do not raise prices in the Russian Federation, and vice versa.
— The problems of independent gas stations are systemic and have been accumulating for more than one year, but they have worsened in 2025. The main factor is the price gap with vertically integrated oil companies. WINKs control mining, processing, and retail, so they can smooth out fluctuations and temporarily operate with minimal margins or even zero. Independent gas stations are completely dependent on purchase prices on the stock exchange and wholesalers, therefore, in case of local shortages, they are forced to quickly raise prices by 8-10 rubles per liter and above in order not to simply lose money," said Vladimir Chernov, analyst at Freedom Finance Global.
What are the reasons for the instability of the fuel market?
On January 15, Ai-92 was trading at a price of 53.9 thousand rubles per ton, Ai-95 — at 57.5 thousand per ton, respectively, according to data from the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. At the same time, in 2025, the cost of fuel in wholesale trade has repeatedly reached historical records. In September, the price of the Ai-95 for delivery to the European part of Russia rose above 82.3 thousand rubles per ton, and the Ai-92 reached a price of more than 70.6 thousand per ton.
— From August to November last year, wholesale fuel prices were at record levels. This made the marginality of independent gas stations negative. In fact, they had three options: significantly increase retail prices, trade at a loss, or temporarily close," said Sergey Kaufman, an analyst at Finam Financial Group.
According to the expert, under normal market conditions, the business of independent gas stations is still highly profitable, and therefore we should not expect an acceleration in the trend towards their closure. The best way to prevent difficulties in the fuel industry as a whole would be to increase the production of petroleum products at existing refineries — many plants in the Russian Federation still have rather modest refining depths and require modernization. However, under the conditions of sanctions, it is difficult to say when reconstruction will be possible, the analyst added.
"If the number of independent gas stations continues to decrease, this may significantly reduce competition in the sector and, as a result, lead to a deterioration in the quality of service," believes Sergey Kaufman.
According to Dmitry Gusev, deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the Reliable Partner Association, it is difficult to say unequivocally whether gas stations that are closing need support.
— Over the decades of the refueling industry in Russia, neither a fuel strategy nor a general scheme for the placement of gas stations has been created. As a result, neither regulators, nor specialized public associations of gas stations, nor the gas stations themselves can answer a simple question: how many gas stations does the country need and whether there is excessive competition," the expert said.
With 28-30 thousand existing in the country. Gas station owners constantly talk about low sales and loss-making. However, if some gas stations close and their number is reduced to about 20 thousand, volumes will increase at the same business costs, Dmitry Gusev noted. However, it is still unclear how convenient this will be for customers, he added.
Targeted measures are needed to support the sustainability of the Russian fuel market, and the key direction is to reduce wholesale price volatility, Vladimir Chernov believes. This can be achieved through more predictable exchange mechanisms, mandatory minimum volumes of fuel sales on the stock exchange and smoothing seasonal imbalances, the expert added.
The second step is to equalize the conditions of competition — we are not talking about direct subsidies, but about the access of independent gas stations to long-term contracts with refineries at formula prices comparable to the terms of the WINC, which will reduce the risk of sharp spikes in retail prices and reduce the cause for regulatory conflicts, said Vladimir Chernov.
One of the problems of the market is shadow mobile container refueling stations, which sell fuel of questionable quality, but much cheaper than that of bona fide market participants, said industry expert Vadim Bortsov. As a result, they take away some of the customers from legal gas stations, which negatively affects business, and also creates risks for citizens, so it is necessary to solve this problem, the specialist added.
The issue of maintaining the number of operating gas stations is far from the key among the set of tasks relevant to the fuel market today, said Yuri Stankevich, Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Energy.
— Moreover, the lack of an industry development strategy does not allow us to draw a proper conclusion about the optimal number of stations for Russia today. Units of large Russian cities take into account the factor of refueling infrastructure development when planning their territories. In most cases, the allocation of land and the construction of new gas stations is spontaneous. We do not keep a register of gas stations either nationwide or at the regional level," the deputy noted.
Before talking about additional measures to support independent gas stations, it is necessary to plan the development of the fuel supply market at the federal level, the parliamentarian concluded.
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