{"id":471459,"date":"2026-05-06T15:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471459\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:35:14","slug":"russias-oil-and-gas-revenues-miss-expectations-despite-higher-crude-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471459\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s Oil and Gas Revenues Miss Expectations Despite Higher Crude Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s oil and gas revenues fell short of expectations in April despite rising crude prices, as higher compensation payments to refiners and a stronger ruble offset gains, Finance Ministry data showed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas revenues totaled 855.6 billion rubles ($11.47 billion) in April, just 21 billion rubles ($0.28 billion) above the baseline level calculated using a budget oil price of $59 per barrel.<\/p>\n

The figures underscore growing pressure on Russia\u2019s energy revenues, with the government\u2019s fuel price support system \u2014 structured as a tax deduction \u2014 and currency strength limiting the budget\u2019s ability to benefit from higher oil prices.<\/p>\n

The baseline price matched<\/a> March 2025 levels, which were used to calculate taxes for April last year. At that time, oil and gas revenues were 230 billion rubles ($3.08 billion), or 26.9%, higher than in April this year, even though the tax price for Russian oil stood at $77 per barrel this April.<\/p>\n

Over the first four months of the year, oil and gas revenues reached 2.3 trillion rubles ($30.82 billion), down 38.3% year-on-year. That amounts to roughly a quarter of the annual target of 8.92 trillion rubles ($119.53 billion).<\/p>\n

Month-on-month, revenues rose 40% from March. However, the additional 21 billion rubles in April fell \u201csignificantly below forecasts\u201d of 200-250 billion rubles ($2.68-$3.35 billion), economist Dmitry Polevoy said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Aleksashenko had expected<\/a> a \u201cwar premium\u201d of around 220 billion rubles ($2.95 billion).<\/p>\n

The shortfall was largely driven by a surge in compensation payments to oil companies under Russia\u2019s fuel price damping mechanism, a tax deduction scheme that reimburses refiners for the gap between domestic and export fuel prices.<\/p>\n

These payments jumped to 207.5 billion rubles ($2.78 billion) in April from 15 billion rubles ($0.20 billion) in March, the Finance Ministry said.<\/p>\n

Economist Yegor Susin said<\/a> the higher payments under the scheme were the main factor behind April\u2019s weak result. From May 1, authorities agreed with oil producers to manually regulate fuel prices, Polevoy noted.<\/p>\n

The near absence of windfall energy revenues in April also means foreign currency purchases for the National Wealth Fund will be far smaller than expected.<\/p>\n

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast<\/a> purchases of 340-455 billion rubles ($4.56-$6.10 billion) over the next month.<\/p>\n

The Finance Ministry said<\/a> purchases would total 110.3 billion rubles ($1.48 billion), or 5.8 billion rubles ($0.078 billion) per day.<\/p>\n

Net daily purchases will amount to about 1.2 billion rubles ($0.016 billion) after accounting for daily Central Bank sales of 4.6 billion rubles ($0.062 billion).<\/p>\n

Analysts at VTB had estimated<\/a> daily purchases at no less than 10 billion rubles ($0.13 billion), while T-Investments chief economist Sofya Donets put<\/a> the figure at 14\u201319 billion rubles ($0.19-$0.25 billion).<\/p>\n

Purchases will be \u201csignificantly lower than expected,\u201d Susin said<\/a>, adding that the ruble is likely to strengthen toward 75 per dollar at such levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cLess buying means a stronger ruble,\u201d Polevoy said.<\/p>\n

A stronger ruble reduces budget revenues from oil, which are denominated in dollars.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter, the budget deficit reached<\/a> 4.6 trillion rubles ($61.64 billion), exceeding the full-year target of 3.8 trillion rubles ($50.92 billion), due to higher spending and weaker oil and gas revenues.<\/p>\n

In May, oil taxes will be calculated<\/a> based on an average April price of $94.9 per barrel, according to the Economy Ministry.<\/p>\n

Aleksashenko expects a \u201cwar premium\u201d of around 400 billion rubles ($5.36 billion) in May at the current exchange rate of 75.5 rubles per dollar.<\/p>\n

Gazprombank\u2019s Center for Economic Forecasting has estimated<\/a> additional oil and gas revenues at 400\u2013500 billion rubles ($5.36-$6.70 billion) for May, assuming Urals crude trades near $100 per barrel.<\/p>\n

Read this article in Russian at The Moscow Times’ Russian service.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s oil and gas revenues fell short of expectations in April despite rising crude prices, as higher compensation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,179,18,7520,10247,19,17,9951],"class_list":{"0":"post-471459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-finance-ministry","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-oil"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116528370510308454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}