“From January there will be a drawdown”: oil loses its marginality, and the budget loses super profits

Yekaterina Maksimova

“I think that in December, taking into account the relaxations that the European Union has issued, taking into account the fact that the contracting of Russian oil for December has been completed as a whole, there will be a relatively calm story. There will be a drawdown from January. The marginality of Russian oil exports will decrease, because in any case, we must understand that in order to be competitive and guarantee the smooth delivery of our oil to countries that have not joined the price ceiling, we will have to offer our oil at prices actually lower. ceiling." Yes, this will not be a price “ceiling” in the direct sense, but there will be a certain discount", - Alexey Gromov noted on December 5 during a round table in the Russia Today press center.

Just today, the Ministry of Finance officially announced the fall in oil and gas revenues. Novye Izvestia reported that so far we are talking about only one month - November, when the budget received less than 90.2 billion rubles. In December, as expected by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, the state treasury will compensate for the loss - by exceeding the actual current oil price. The department has not yet shared its forecast for January.

It is from today that a partial embargo on the import of crude oil from Russia came into force in Europe. EU countries will stop buying raw materials from Russia by sea. In addition, from today, European operators are prohibited from transporting Russian oil by oil tankers to other regions if the price exceeds the introduced ceiling - $60 per barrel. Purchases of black gold from Russia are stopped from today, and delivery has been extended until January 19, 2023. Exports via the Druzhba pipeline are not subject to embargo.

As previously clarified for Novye Izvestia expert of the analytical center "Infotek", Associate Professor of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Valery Andrianov, in the first nine months of this year, the export of crude oil and oil products from Russia to the EU countries amounted to about 80 million tons. For the same period in 2021, a little more - 84 million tons. The income from exports (including oil products) to the EU from January to September exceeded 46.7 billion euros, that is, about 3 trillion rubles.

Since 2022, China, India and Turkey have significantly increased their purchases of Russian oil. But the largest importers insistently demand discounts. As Bloomberg reported, China and India buy two-thirds of the volume of oil exported by sea from Russia. At the same time, the discount for Urals increased by almost 40%. And such a discount costs exporters about $4 billion a month. in the form of lost profits.

Oil and gas revenues to the Russian budget for 2022 were planned in the amount of 9.5 trillion rubles (or 38.1% of all revenues). The plan will definitely be overfulfilled, and oil and gas will bring more than 11 trillion rubles to the state treasury by the end of the outgoing year. For 2023, when the oil and gas sector will be effectively cut off from the European market, planned revenues are expected at the level of 8 trillion rubles - with a stable ruble exchange rate in the range of 65-75 rubles per dollar. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak predicts that next year oil production in the Russian Federation may be reduced by 7.5%, to 490 million tons (despite the fact that this year, despite the sanctions, it will grow by 1.1%, to 530 million tons ). In this regard, possible budget losses will amount to 500 billion rubles.