The share of oil and gas revenues in the Russian budget has fallen to a minimum in 16 years

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented on the dynamics of the Russian budget oil and gas revenues to Business FM:

"We can say that the sanctions partially worked in the first half of the year, because the main drop in budget revenues, primarily from oil, falls precisely at the beginning — middle of the year, and this was due to large discounts and the fact that the government could not decide for a long time how to withdraw additional revenue from the company, which went into the gray zone. That is, most of the deliveries of oil cargo, primarily crude oil, began to be processed at low prices, and in fact this margin, which was previously visible to the Ministry of Finance and from which taxes were taken, that is, which was an important part of the tax base, went beyond Russia, into the space between the price at the Russian port of shipment and the price at the port- the recipient. In this margin, a fairly large share of additional profits of companies, including Russian ones, which partially control both freight and cargo insurance, trading margins, since most of the oil is sold not directly by producing companies, but through various trading structures. This problem has not been completely solved, although the Ministry of Finance is trying to start controlling it in various ways, and this partly works out. If we look at the longer term, we can at least talk about stabilization at this level, if we proceed from a rather pessimistic assessment, stabilization in 2024-2026. Or, in a more optimistic scenario in terms of supply volumes and prices, there is likely to be an increase in oil and gas revenues."