In November 2023, oil and gas budget revenues amounted to 962 billion rubles

Oil and gas revenues of the federal budget in November for the third month in a row exceeded the monthly base level, amounting to 962 billion rubles. At the same time, even adjusted for the absence of additional income tax (AIT) collections in November, revenues with a stable oil price due to the return of the fuel damper to oil workers decreased by 8% compared to October. In annual terms, compared to November last year, they added 11%. Exceeding the base led to the emergence of additional revenues, which, however, due to the suspension of some budget rules until the end of this year, will not be reintroduced to the foreign exchange market.

According to data published by the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday, in November oil and gas budget revenues amounted to 962 billion rubles. with a base of 689 billion rubles. Let us recall that the base level is 8 trillion rubles, broken down by month, the minimum required by the budget in 2023 to cover expenses from oil and gas (next year, instead of this cut-off amount, the cut-off price approximately corresponding to it is returned – $60 per barrel). November revenues are lower than October revenues (RUB 1.635 trillion) by 41%, but adjusted for the absence in the past month of AIT collections, paid four times a year, the reduction does not look so significant – minus 7.8%. In annual comparison, that is, by November 2022, oil and gas revenues increased by 11%.

Based on the results of all 11 months of the year, oil and gas revenues collected 8.172 trillion rubles, and this is 23.3% less than for the same period in 2022 – the gap from last year’s schedule is thus progressively decreasing (at the end of the half year it was 47 %%, three quarters – 34.5%).

In November, collections of the main oil and gas tax, mineral extraction tax, remained approximately at the October level – 1.175 trillion rubles. after 1.108 trillion rubles. This is primarily due to the fact that the price of Urals in October (oil taxes are calculated based on the price and ruble exchange rate in the previous month) remained at approximately the same level – $81.5, compared to the September price of $83.1 per barrel.

Let us explain that total oil and gas revenues are less than the collections of a separate mineral extraction tax, because the total amount is reduced by return payments to oil workers from the budget.

Spending on subsidies to oil refiners in November decreased to 125 billion from 147 billion rubles. in October, but payments to fuel damper companies increased to 193 billion rubles. from scratch, when such compensation, let us remind you, was temporarily absent. The return of the damper, in fact, was the only reason for the reduction in oil and gas revenues in November relative to October (not counting the absence of irregular income tax).

With the Treasury expecting additional oil and gas revenues in November, it announced purchases of foreign currency and gold for reserves on Tuesday.

However, the foreign exchange market will not see these transactions again; they will take place between the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance. Let us remind you that the budget rule in this part to curb the weakening of the ruble was suspended from August 10 until the end of the year (see “Kommersant” dated August 10), so the Central Bank does not mirror these transactions. But from January 2024, the Bank of Russia, according to its message dated November 27, will resume transactions on the domestic foreign exchange market “taking into account the balancing of all transactions carried out with funds from the National Welfare Fund in 2023,” that is, when determining the size of interventions, not only foreign currency purchases postponed this year, but also spending to finance the deficit from the fund.

Vadim Visloguzov