Azernews.Az

MOSCOW – Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) may reduce the 26.1bn rubles in fines imposed on oil companies LUKoil, Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and TNK-BP over price fixing for oil products on the wholesale market in 2008 and in the first quarter of 2009, Vedomosti business daily said on Monday.

The service's head Igor Artemyev has said that Rosneft suggested ending the conflict amicably, but the service could not do so without consent from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Vedomosti Putin had unofficially agreed to resolve the problem amicably.

Artemyev also said the fines could not be cancelled, but could be lowered to one percent of turnover if the company itself admitted guilt. Rosneft's first fine amounts to 1.5 billion rubles or 1.1 percent of turnover, and its second fine to 5.3 billion rubles or more than four percent of turnover. The FAS may cut the penalty to 2.7 billion rubles.

FAS Legal Department head Sergei Puzyrevsky told Vedomosti that Gazprom Neft and the service had started talks and were discussing the text of a mutual agreement.

Gazprom Neft's Kurban Nepesov said the company had its own view of how an amicable agreement should look, and was discussing it with the Antimonopoly Service.

A source close to the service told Vedomosti it was also holding talks with the other oil companies.