Figure of the day: in the first month of the year, Russia lost 54 billion oil and gas revenues

The year started extremely badly for the Russian oil industry: the discount on Russian Urals oil compared to Brent increased to 50%. During the New Year holidays, according to InfoTEC, it was trading at $37.80 per barrel in the Baltic port of Primorsk, which, compared with other Russian ports, is at the maximum distance from Asian markets. And the price of Brent crude oil was $78.57 per barrel, Bloomberg reports, citing Argus Media data.Bloomberg estimated that the ceiling of prices for Russian oil introduced in 2022 costs Russia $160-172 million in lost revenue per day.

After the extension of the price ceiling for petroleum products (the embargo on the export of which will take effect from February 5) the country will start losing $280 million a day. In 2023, the country's budget should receive 8,939 trillion oil and gas revenues.

Such data are based on the forecast that the average price of Urals crude oil in 2023 will be $70.1 per barrel. And the average contract price for gas, taking into account the CIS countries, will be $592.2 per thousand cubic meters in 2023.As one of the leading oil and gas experts predicts

Mikhail Krutikhin, in the middle of 2023, oil production in Russia may decrease by 50%. As for the export of black gold, in December 2022 alone, offshore oil exports from Russia decreased by about 20%. During this period, according to the Ministry of Finance, the average price of the Russian Urals oil brand was $50.47. This is the minimum since December 2020. "With such a price and a production level of 10 million barrels per day, Russia may miss 2.1 trillion oil and gas revenues relative to the 8.9 trillion rubles budgeted," noted economic geographer Natalia Zubarevich. As for gas exports, Alexey Belogoryev, Deputy Director for Energy at the Institute of Energy and Finance, noted that the total export of pipeline gas to Europe by the end of 2023 will amount to about 25 billion cubic meters.

And compared to 2021, it will shrink by more than five times (the volume of supplies to the SVO was more than 140 billion cubic meters).