TNK-BP placed a petition on buying Koltsovo Airport’s filling station with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. The airport reports they need to sell the station in order to make the regional jet fuel market more liberal; the transaction sum has not been announced yet, Kommersant reports.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced a few days ago that the airport’s fuel filling station (a part of which belongs to the regional government) might be sold to an outside organization. The Governor explained several stations owned by different proprietors were needed at the airport in order to create competition and reduce jet fuel prices.

However, some shares in both TNK-BP and Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg belong to one and the same stockholder, Renova State Corporation. This is why experts doubt the transaction will make prices more competitive.

This is, in fact, not the first time Koltsovo has tried to sell its filling station. Two years ago, the company was pressed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the local authorities to put it up to auction, but no applications were made by the bidders: the airport set the opening bid at ?120m, whereas the interested market players believed the station should be sold at half this price.