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Ministry calls for increasing aviation fuel reserve to 5 - 7 days

According to the Ministry, the reserve at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport is about 20,000 tons, which will approximately last this airport for four days

ST PETERSBURG, September 5 (Itar-Tass) — The Ministry of Fuel and Energy suggests increasing the norm for the aviation fuel reserves at airports to five - seven days.

"We need to think over the issue of increasing the norm for the aviation fuel reserve at airports," Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko told reporters here on Monday.

According to the Ministry, the reserve at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport is about 20,000 tons, which will approximately last this airport for four days.

The Rosaviatsiya Federal Air Transport Agency told Tass on Monday that there is no shortage of fuel at the airports of Moscow and Yekaterinburg [Koltsovo]. The agency declined to elaborate.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) said it would check compliance with legislation in aviation fuel supplies by oil refineries and transport organizations.

"Due to the disproportion between supply and demand on the market of aviation fuel, and a decrease in the minimal stock of fuel necessary for uninterrupted operation of the airports of the Moscow aviation hub and Koltsovo [Yekaterinburg], a threat of mass violations of passengers' rights has emerged," a PGO official said.

"The PGO ordered the Moscow and the Urals regions' transport prosecutors, and prosecutors of the Moscow and Omsk regions to check compliance with legislation in supplies of aviation fuel by oil refineries and transport organizations," the prosecutor added.

Prosecutors sent information to the director of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) on checking compliance with the anti-monopoly legislation by the oil refineries.

The situation is under prosecutors' control. Transport prosecutors were ordered to take complete measures to defend passengers' interests in the event of disruptions in transportation due to shortages of fuel. These measures include the supply of food to passengers from hotels.

There have been reports in the past few days about shortages of fuel in a number of Russian airports. The situation was particularly difficult at the Sheremetyevo airport, which said it might stop servicing flights after September 10.

Earlier, a Rosaviatsiya official told Tass his agency would ask the Rosrezerv Federal Agency for State Reserves to allocate 180,000 tons of aviation fuel to Moscow airports. He confirmed that "a certain negative trend has manifested itself in supplies of aviation fuel to the airports within the Moscow air zone."

"In this connection, we intend to ask Rosrezerv to allocate 180,000 tons of aviation fuel to these airports," the official said.

The Rosaviatsiya representative also said his agency would ask oil refineries to boost and optimize the supplies of their products to Moscow airports, due to the recent increase in air transportation by 10 percent.