Orlen and Lotos under pressure from Gov't to cut margins

In this way he is trying to offset so-called social effect of the increase in excise duty on fuels to be carried out in 2006. "Lowering excise duty resulted in an increase in oil companies' margins. The state gave away a few hundred million złoty for the sake of higher income for oil companies," said the PM Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. He went on to say that there were different ways of convincing oil companies to lower margins. "We want to talk about what is going on in the companies to evaluate the work of the management boards," said Marcinkiewicz. He also said that publicizing the margins of oil companies will be enough to convince them to lower them. Both companies claim that the decrease in the value of excise tax of zł.0.25 was fully returned to customers. Analysts state that the margins of oil companies depend on crude oil rather than excise tax. (Parkiet, p. 5) M.M.