Oil companies are waiting for the strategic moves of the market leader, OMV Petrom, to decide how to change the fuel price, as shown in the Competition Council’s annual report on the evolution of competition in key sectors, released on Monday.

“Both gasoline and diesel fuel are observed, based on the equations determined individually for each player, a pattern that suggests the existence of a leader’s following behavior (in this case the leader being OMV Petrom). The results suggest that OMV Petrom reacts faster than the other players in the market, which may suggest that they are actually waiting for OMV Petrom’s strategic moves to respond to them,” says the report, according to Agerpres.

The Competition Authority has carried out an analysis of the fuel sector, to determine if the evolution of the prices at the pump follows the one of the oil quotations. “Based on the aggregated data at the weekly level in the case of gasoline, the quantitative processing does not reject the existence of an asymmetrical adjustment of the pump price according to the evolution of the Platts quotation. However, the adjustment difference is very small (around 1%), so the economic significance of such an adjustment must also be taken into account. In the case of diesel, quantitative processing is not suggests the existence of an asymmetrical adjustment of the price according to the evolution of the Platts quotation “, the authors of the report said.

Following the investigation, the Competition Council recommended that all oil companies display simultaneously the increase in fuel prices, so that companies do not influence each other, as competition in the fuel market is reduced.