Oil and gas revenues bounced off the bottom

Oil and gas revenues of the federal budget in February amounted to 521.2 billion rubles, follows from the statistics of the Ministry of Finance published on Friday. This is 22.5% more than in January (425.5 billion rubles), but 46.4% less than what was received by the budget a year earlier, in February 2022 (971.7 billion rubles). In the first two months of this year, 946.7 billion rubles of oil and gas revenues were collected for the budget, which is the same 46.4% less than a year earlier.

As in January, in February the budget again did not reach the base level of oil and gas revenues planned for the month (669.8 billion rubles) – this time, 148.6 billion rubles were not enough. The base level, we recall, is 8 trillion rubles “spread out” by months. annual revenues, the minimum required by the Ministry of Finance to cover the expenditures of the 2023 budget. Amounts above this threshold are considered additional income and, under the new budget rule, must be accumulated in the NWF, and not spent on current needs.

Since there are no additional revenues from oil and gas, in March the budget rule will again work in a “non-standard” direction: the Ministry of Finance will not buy, but sell foreign currency from reserves to receive the missing “oil and gas” rubles. On Friday, the department announced that it would send 119.8 billion rubles worth of yuan for sale – 5.4 billion rubles each. in a day. Such interventions, carried out in the foreign exchange market with the help of the Central Bank, will be carried out from March 7 to April 6. In the previous month, the Ministry of Finance sent for sale more than a third more – 8.9 billion rubles each. daily.

Some increase in oil and gas revenues in February after the January collapse (when revenues fell by 54% compared to the December level, see Kommersant for February 6) is due to an increase in MET collections. In particular, the amount of this tax from gas production increased from 44.3 billion in January to 120.5 billion rubles. in February. This is due to the start of receipt of additional MET from Gazprom in accordance with the previously adopted law: in 2023-2025, the state corporation will pay 50 billion rubles a month. more (the so-called slap to the MET). In addition, since January 1, the base for calculating this tax has been adjusted. The amount of fees from the export duty on oil, gas and oil products in February, compared with January, decreased markedly – from 105.9 billion to 55.8 billion rubles.

Vadim Visloguzov