Kirishnefteorgsintez, the main supplier of gasoline to St. Petersburg, plans to raise gas prices by 30 percent as of Jan.1, but officials said Friday that the hike would not immediately affect prices or supply in Moscow.


"We have to do this because of rising prices for crude oil, which makes about 90 percent of our price, and rising prices for electricity," said Nikolay Laptev, Kirishnefteorgsintez's first deputy general director, in a telephone interview from the company headquarters in Kirishi.


He said that Surgutneftegaz, the firm's major supplier of crude oil, intends to hike prices to 250,000 rubles ($70) per ton as of Jan.1 from the present price of 140,000 rubles.


Kirishnefteorgsintez supplies gasoline to St. Petersburg and the surrounding regions, including Tver, Pskov, Novgorod, Murmansk and part of Karelia in northwestern Russia.


Last month, Moscow experienced a gasoline crisis that was caused in part by higher prices in neighboring regions, which resulted in an outflow of fuel from the capital.


The crisis ended only when Moscow leveled its gasoline prices with the other regions.


However, Alexander Korsak, deputy head of the Moscow Mayor's Office, said the price hike in St. Petersburg would not immediately affect gasoline supply to Moscow.


He said that the difference between Surgutneftegaz's new price of 200,000 rubles per ton and the 175,000 rubles per ton that Moscow suppliers charge was not large enough to make arbitration between Moscow and St. Petersburg profitable.


Korsak said that the next price hike in Moscow would come sometime next year, when the Moscow Refinery and crude oil suppliers "agree upon mutually profitable prices."


Laptev said that Kirishnefteorgsintez would hike prices for 96-octane gas from 962,000 rubles to 1,198,800 rubles per ton.


The price for a ton of 92-octane gas would go from 680,800 rubles to 828,800 rubles.


The price for a ton of 76-octane petrol would go from 488,400 rubles to 695,600 rubles, and diesel fuel from 367,040 rubles to 463,240 rubles.