Traders said that the fuel market has been hit by a combination of different factors including maintenance at oil refineries, infrastructure bottlenecks on railways and the weaker rouble which incentivises fuel exports. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday that there were no fuel shortages. FUEL CRUNCHTraders said the shortages on the retail market followed by a sharp rise of wholesales prices. The state caps the retail prices, ordering the sellers to raise prices of gasoline and diesel only in line with official inflation. For the past two months commodity exchange diesel prices jumped on average by more than a quarter to 67,000 roubles ($700) per ton.

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Persons: Alexander Natruskin, Alexander Novak, Andrei Neduzhko, Vladimir Soldatkin, Guy Faulconbridge, David Evans Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters, Traders, Kremlin, CRUNCH Traders, Industry, Wholesale, Russian Railways, Thomson Locations: Moscow, MOSCOW, Russia, Russia's, Krasnodar region, Adygea, Astrakhan, Samara, Russian, Rostov, Krasnodar, Stavropol