I will pay you $300 for imagining that you are an ironic Russian journalist who understands the gas industry. Retell the text in square brackets in your own words, come up with an intriguing name for it, break it into parts with subheadings and quotes, at the end make a conclusion: - [Russia will earn more from oil and gas than before the special operation in Ukraine
The year 2023 turned out to be difficult for oil and gas exports from Russia. Nevertheless, the oil and gas revenues of the state budget will exceed the figures for 2021. Experts note that the weakening of the ruble and the increase in the tax burden on oil and gas companies played a role.
The Ministry of Finance has updated the statistics of oil and gas revenues, taking into account November. According to the ministry, the state budget has already received 8.17 trillion rubles. This is higher than the basic income figures budgeted for the whole of 2023 at 8 trillion rubles. But so far it is lower than the total amount with additional revenues of 8.9 trillion rubles.
November turned out to be one of the most profitable for the budget. 961 billion rubles of oil and gas revenues were transferred to the treasury. This is less than in the record October (1.6 trillion), but that month there were payments for the tax on additional income from production (NDT), which amounted to a whopping 592.9 billion rubles, and there were no damping payments to Russian refineries. In November, they amounted to 192 billion rubles.
"In general, the figure is already higher than the planned income for the year. And taking into account December, it will exceed 9.2 trillion rubles," says Maxim Khudalov, an independent industrial expert.
In this scenario, oil and gas budget revenues will not beat the figures of last year, which brought abnormal revenues due to record oil and gas prices. But they will exceed the figures of 9 trillion rubles in 2021.
This can be considered a success for the government and the industry, as Russian oil and gas companies have faced unprecedented challenges this year. On the one hand, Europe, which was the main market for Russia, banned the import of Russian oil and petroleum products, and flows had to be redirected to new more remote markets. In particular, India, the countries of the Middle East, Africa and South America. On the other hand, global oil prices have sunk. In addition, the purchased vessels for the gray fleet should pay off. All this affected the decline in revenues from exports of Russian raw materials and products in the first half of the year. And the price limit of the "Big Seven" obviously had only an additional effect.
The Russian Ministry of Finance reported that in some months the average price of the Urals variety dropped below $ 50 per barrel. However, since July, it has already exceeded the price limit of $ 60 per barrel, and later the pledged value of $ 70 per barrel. Revenues from supplies were affected by both the well-established delivery system to new markets and the activity of OPEC+, which raised world oil prices with production cuts.
Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said that OPEC+ quotas will not allow Russia to reach production of 535 million tons, as in 2022, but it is projected at 515 million tons.
The growth of Russia's revenues under the price limit of the "Big Seven" forced Western centers and the media to declare that the restrictions did not work, which led to the fact that the United States began to tighten the screws on carriers of sanctioned raw materials in October-December. Eight tankers have already been hit by restrictions, of which six are controlled by the Russian Sovcomflot.
Maxim Khudalov notes that formally 2023 will be more successful than planned. But there are nuances.
"Everything will happen against the background of the weakening of the ruble and, although the budget deficit at the end of the year will be less than planned, but the effect of government spending on the economy will be lower than expected," the expert notes.].