The Central Bank may start buying currency with Brent oil at $88–90 – Kommersant

The Central Bank (CB) may begin purchasing the yuan according to the fiscal rule if Brent oil costs $88–90 per barrel. She reported this in an interview RBC Chairman of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina.

“If the oil price remains at the current level, then we will be a net seller of foreign currency. If the oil price is $88–90 per barrel of Brent, then we can become a currency buyer,” Ms. Nabiullina clarified.

According to her, from the beginning of the year the regulator will return to selling currency. “Literally in the near future we will announce what sales will be in January,” added the chairman of the Central Bank.

As of Friday, December 22, a barrel of Brent oil cost almost $80. Brent reached the level of $88–90 per barrel at the end of October. The Central Bank suspended operations on the foreign exchange market on August 10 amid the fall of the ruble.

On August 7, the Ministry of Finance for the first time since February 2022 switched to purchases within the framework of the budget rule – this is a mechanism for transferring excess income from the oil and gas industry into savings through the purchase of foreign currency. At the beginning of December the department reportedwhich will reduce the daily purchase of foreign currency according to the budget rule by 2.5 times, to 11.7 billion rubles.

Laura Keffer