Romania to cut excise duty on diesel, charge windfall tax on oil companies

Prime minister of Romania, Ilie Bolojan, announced on March 30 in an interview with Digi24 that the government will reduce the excise duty on fuel in the coming period to support buyers. The final decision will be taken by the end of the week and applied next week, in parallel with other interventions already taken to limit commercial surcharges and support transporters and farmers.

"In the first stage, we are focusing on diesel; over 70% of [fuel] consumption is diesel," the prime minister said.

At the same time, PM Bolojan announced that the government is working on establishing a “solidarity fund” that will be financed from the profits of oil companies on the Romanian market.

“Those [companies] that are in a situation where, by exploiting Romanian crude oil, are in a position to derive windfall profits, must participate from this profit in a solidarity fund,” PM Bolojan explained.

The main company subject to this decision is OMV Petrom (BVB: SNP).

The Ministry of Finance is working on the details. This will be done after consulting those involved, so that at the end of this week, we can adopt it, and it will be in force next week, PM Bolojan confirmed.

Last week, the government of Romania enacted a state of crisis in the fuel market, capping the commercial markup along the entire import/production, distribution, and retail chain at the level of the average markups charged in 2025. The export of petroleum products and crude oil was placed under a special regime as well, where a permit from the Ministries of Energy and Economy will be issued on a case-by-case basis.

(Photo source: Baloncici/Dreamstime.com)