According to Kommersant’s calculation based on Kontur.Focus data, the 935 companies and entrepreneurs liquidated in January–September 2026 in retail fuel sales marked the highest figure since 2022.
Over the same period, the number of new registrations in fuel retail fell by 28.4% to 668 and, for the first time since 2022, was lower than the number of liquidations. On average, for every 10 new market participants, about 14 exited.
By comparison, in the first nine months of 2025, 933 new participants were registered in the sector and 801 were liquidated. As of October 1, 2026, 10.72 thousand companies and entrepreneurs were operating in Russia in the retail fuel trade sector, 2.9% fewer than a year earlier.
Kasatkin Consulting managing partner Dmitry Kasatkin estimated the share of independent gas stations at about 60% of Russian filling stations, and their contribution to fuel sales at 30–40%. Market participants interviewed by Kommersant linked the closures of independent gas stations to supply disruptions, rising wholesale prices, and costs.
Open Oil Market CEO Sergey Tereshkin separately pointed to the summer surge in wholesale prices and the reduction in the exchange sales quota for oil companies from 15% to 10%. NEFT Research managing partner Sergey Frolov also named unscheduled refinery repairs, which disrupted the stability of supplies to independent filling stations, as a cause.
According to Kommersant’s source, in August and early September the break-even selling price of AI-92 for independent gas stations in the Moscow region was about 120 rubles per liter. A representative of the Russian Fuel Union said that over the past six months some independent gas stations had closed, and at the gas stations that continued operating, gasoline and diesel fuel often cost 10–40 rubles per liter more than at vertically integrated oil company stations.
In a broader context, The Insider wrote that by the end of June, shortages of gasoline, restrictions, or interruptions in its sale had been recorded in 88 of the 89 Russian-controlled regions. In August, according to the user service GdeBENZ, gasoline and diesel were available at less than a third of Russian gas stations, and in September in St. Petersburg fuel was unavailable at more than half of the checked filling stations.
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