Energy, Gas, Latvia, Oil, Transport

"I believe that there will be some ten players left on the market, not including gas retailers. At the moment, there are more than a hundred fuel retailers," explains the businessman.

According to the Competition Council's documents, "Neste", "Statoil" and "Lukoil" have a combined market share of 60% in Latvia. If franchises are added to this figure, the three companies may control 75% of the Latvian fuel retail market, or maybe even more, notes Riekstins.

"Therefore, bluntly speaking, the market has already been divided. I believe that it is in the large players' interest if the smaller ones go bankrupt, increasing their market share. The sooner the local companies become bankrupt, the faster the large players' market share will increase," believes Riekstins.

He also says that small retailers' profitability is small, and that many small retailers have failed to timely invest in the development of their filling stations. Another reason why many small fuel traders shut down is the decreasing number of residents in rural areas.

"Rural filling stations will shut down, it is already happening," says Riekstins. "Filling stations in good locations could be sold. We ourselves recently bought filling stations from two owners, which means that Virsi-A has cut the number of fuel traders by two this year. And then there are fuel traders that simply fold," emphasizes the businessman.

Joint-stock company Virsi-A is the largest local fuel trader in terms of sales; the company runs a network of filling stations all over Latvia. The company was established in 1995.

Virsi-A posted LVL 775,000 in unaudited profit last year, a 14% increase on 2011. Virsi-A turnover last year increased to LVL 70.6 million.

The company paid LVL 3.6 million in taxes in 2011 and LVL 4.6 million in 2012.