Russia's profit from oil, gas sales in February increases by 80% compared to 2023

Bloomberg reports.

According to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, in February, the Russian budget revenues from taxes on raw materials and gas amounted to 945.6 billion rubles - $10.4 billion.

Bloomberg estimates that taxes on oil and oil products, which account for 84% of all hydrocarbon revenues, have more than doubled.

“Russia’s oil and gas sectors provide a key source of revenue for the nation’s coffers, which have been under pressure from the rising military cost of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine,” the publication says.

In order to reduce Russia's oil revenues, Western countries imposed sanctions that caused the price of Urals crude to fall below $50 per barrel last month.

At the same time, the European Union banned most of Russia's maritime imports of crude oil and petroleum products when the G7 countries set a cap of $60 per barrel for Russian oil cargoes. Foreign buyers have the opportunity to purchase Russian barrels at a higher price, but they cannot use Western services for supplies, including delivery and insurance.

Bloomberg says “Moscow has limited the impact of the price cap by using a massive shadow fleet of tankers and working with non-Western buyers, intermediaries and service providers”.

But the US, along with its allies, has stepped up control over price caps since November by sanctioning several ships and traders for violating the limits.

To protect the flow of money to its budget, Russia has activated the so-called "price floor" mechanism, which obliges producers to pay taxes based on an artificial discount of $15 per barrel of Urals to Brent.