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Urals Export Yields Nearly $50 Billion in H1
Even the record duties on crude oil/petroleum export failed to curtail the H1 export of oil. Russia delivered abroad 124.9 million tons from January to June (-0.1 percent on year), yielding $49.54 billion to economy. On the world markets, the difference between Urals and actual contract prices of Russia’s companies is narrowing very slowly despite the fight with transfer prices, efforts to improve taxation and growth in traders’ sales. It has dropped only to 10 percent to-date vs. 15 percent three years ago.
Crude oil production grew 2.3 percent on year in the first half-year; in-kind export lowered 0.1 percent, Russia’s Statistics Committee said in the report that was promulgated at the end of past week. Even though there is some decline, the export share in the overall production goes down extremely slowly. It was 53 percent in the first H1 vs. 55 percent a year ago.
The government apparently thinks taxation has neared its ceiling in the oil industry. Irrespective of crude oil prices, the ministry’s intention is trimming tax burden by 0.5 percent of the GDP from 2007. The gains generated from severance tax are forecasted at 4.4 percent of the GDP this year, but expected to sink to 2 percent by 2009.
In terms of money, crude oil revenues of exporters have peaked in the first half of this year to $49.54 billion from $32.50 billion in January to June of 2005. The amount of $49.54 billion has been calculated in view of the transit accounts, as it would have been just $43.38 billion without them. For Russia’s economy, it is the absolute record. So far, the country hasn’t faced the flow of oil dollars of the extent that could fuel the annual growth by 60 percent.
The export price for Russia’s crude oil was $432.7 a ton in June vs. the Urals price of $469.3 on average. The difference between actual export prices and world prices never stands still. Nevertheless, the linear approximation shows the gap has narrowed from roughly 15 percent in early 2003 to around 10 percent in the mid.-2006.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 21, 2006
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