Oil export duties increased

The Government Commission on Protective Measures in Foreign Trade and Customs Tariff Policy approved new rates of export duties on oil and petroleum products. The increase in rates was made taking into account the coefficient, which is designed to compensate the federal budget for the depreciation of the euro, in which the rate is charged, to the US dollar. Gennady Yezhov, press secretary of Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, who heads the commission, told reporters about this. The commission promptly responded to the change in world oil prices (from 30 to 25.5 dollars per barrel) and did not increase duty rates on projects initially proposed by the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance.

The rates approved by the commission are as follows: for crude oil and crude oil products - from 34 to 48 euros per ton, for diesel fuel - from 32 to 39 euros per ton, for fuel oil - from 27 to 31 euros per ton.

The increase in export duty rates is caused by the trend of stable growth in prices for Russian oil in Europe in recent months (in August-November from 27.4 to 31 dollars per barrel) and petroleum products over the same period (fuel oil - from 141.3 to 155.9 dollars , diesel fuel - from 282.8 to 316.1 dollars and gasoline from 254.9 to 294.9 dollars per ton).

As Yezhov emphasized, under these conditions, oil companies received significant excess income, the net profit of many of them reached $100 million per month. In addition, the fall in the exchange rate of the euro against the US dollar provided oil companies with additional excess income, since in real terms the companies, receiving income in dollars, began to underpay to the federal budget, where the excise tax was received in euros. Taking this into account, the rates of the current scale were indexed, which was fully understood at the meeting of oil company leaders with Alexei Kudrin at the end of last week.

The new export duty rates will come into force a month after the corresponding document is signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.