Since the beginning of the year, the budget has not received 554 billion rubles. oil and gas revenues

For the first half of 2023, the federal budget missed 554 billion rubles. basic oil and gas revenues, the minimum required by the government to support spending. The reduction in fees from oil and gas for six months remains approximately the same as in the first quarter – minus 47% yoy. In June, there were no significant signs of improvement in the situation with oil and gas revenues – companies paid taxes from the price of Urals, which decreased in May, and the system of linking taxes to the price of Brent, invented by the authorities, again did not work. Further, however, oil and gas fees may grow up – both due to slightly more expensive oil in June, and due to a new collapse of the ruble.

Oil and gas revenues of the federal budget in June amounted to 528.6 billion rubles, follows from Ministry of Finance data. This is the minimum since February of this year (oil and gas revenues, however, are characterized by seasonality, including due to the uneven receipt of additional income tax, AIT). Compared to last June, the drop does not look dramatic – 26%, but in general, for the first half of the year, the reduction in revenues remains in the same sad schedule for the budget – minus 47% compared to the comparable period in 2022 (according to the results of the first quarter – minus 45%).

However, in practice, it is not the comparison with last year that looks more alarming, but the stable backlog of fees from the planned base volume of monthly oil and gas revenues. For 2023, they are laid down by the Ministry of Finance in the amount of 8 trillion rubles, which, according to the department, is exactly how much the budget needs to cover expenses from oil and gas. The budget rule is also tied to this amount – if the “base” is short, the Ministry of Finance must sell the currency, if it is exceeded, buy it into reserves from the market.

For June, the basic volume decomposed into months was planned in the amount of 663.8 billion rubles – the shortfall, thus, amounted to 135.2 billion. 554 billion

Because of this, despite the forecasts of some analysts, there will be no transition from the sale of foreign currency by the Ministry of Finance to its purchase in July – the budget rule conceived to replenish the NWF will again work in a “non-standard” direction. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Finance announced that it would send 34.9 billion rubles worth of yuan for sale – 1.7 billion rubles each. per day from 7 July to 4 August. This is half as much as it was in the previous month (3.6 billion rubles per day).

Further, in July, oil and gas revenues from the budget may grow – both because of the new round of ruble depreciation that began in June (not only export revenues, but also the size of the severance tax depend on the exchange rate), and because of a slight rise in the price of Urals – in May, a barrel of this varieties cost an average of $53.3, in June – $55.3 (oil taxes are calculated from the price in the previous month, the export duty lag is less – half a month).

Note that the new method of calculating oil taxes approved by the authorities still does not work. To reduce budget losses from falling prices for Russian oil, since April, the possibility has been legally introduced to calculate the MET and AIT not from the actual price of Urals, but based on the price of the North Sea Dated (NSD, corresponds to the Brent blend), reduced by a fixed discount. Later, another law from June introduced the same discount for the export duty. In May, the Urals fixed discount to NSD was $31, in June it was $28 ($25 for July and beyond). In fact, it turned out to be noticeably smaller – $22 in May and $19 in June.

With such a difference, it is more profitable for the budget to calculate taxes in the old way, at the price of Urals.

Correcting the forecasting error, the government is now preparing amendments to the legislation, including reducing the size of the fixed discount to $20, that is, to its current level.

Vadim Visloguzov