Russian oil and gas export revenues declined significantly

Russia’s Customs reported a sharp drop in gas and oil exports in the first quarter of this year.

According to the report, the country’s natural gas export revenues fell by nearly 52% to $ 6.8 billion. This is in comparison to the first quarter of last year.

The volume of natural gas exports has dropped by 24% to nearly 47 billion cubic meters.

Gazprom state-owned company has a monopoly on the country’s natural gas exports through pipelines.

Falling oil prices, along with declining gas exports, have halved Russia’s gas export revenues in the first quarter.

The report also says that the country’s oil export revenues have fallen by nearly 14 per cent to $ 25 billion and $ 600 million.

Russia’s oil exports in the first quarter of the year fell 6 per cent to 63 million tons.

Russia’s oil and gas exports are expected to fall further in the second quarter of the year, amid a sharp drop in oil prices in April and May.

Russia is expected to face a $ 74 billion budget deficit this year.

Russia reduced its oil production to 8.5 million barrels per day

The country is trying to comply with its share of the OPEC+ output reduction. This is unlike in previous agreements when Russia had regularly surpassed its dose.

So far in May, the country seems to be complying its quota. 

Russia agreed to cut its production to 8.5 million BPD in May and June as a part of the agreement. 

Pavel Sorokin, Russias Deputy Energy Minister, stated earlier in May that Moscow expected to achieve the maximum reduction level as soon as possible. 

Between May 1 and 19, Russia’s oil and condensate output averaged 9.42 million BPD. Crude oil production totalled 8.72. Considering Russia’s track record in complying with the cuts, which was far from perfect, the reduction is close to the 8.5 million BPD quota.

Last week, Alexander Novak, the Energy Minister of Russia and Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, the energy minister of Saudi Arabia, issued a joint statement. According to it, the two countries remained strongly committed to achieving an objective of stabilizing the market. They state they are expediting the rebalancing of the oil market. They hope that their partners in OPEC+ are also fully aligned with their goals.

At the beginning of April, Saudi Arabia and Russia, with other oil-producing countries, reached an agreement to cut oil production by 9.7 million barrels per day for May and June.