Russia’s oil and gas revenues declined in November to 961.7 billion roubles ($10.53 billion) from 1.635 trillion roubles in the previous month, finance ministry data showed on Tuesday, due to the cyclical nature of profit-based tax payments.

This was broadly in line with a Reutersforecast of around 1 trillion roubles.

Russian energy companies paid profit-based taxes of almost half a trillion roubles in October for the previous quarter. The payments declined to only 2 billion roubles in November, as producers typically pay the fee during one particular month of a quarter.
Oil and gas sales, which have accounted for more than 28% of total Russian budget proceeds so far this year, still rose by 11% from November 2022 as the government did not pay the so-called damper payment to oil refiners.

The abolition of damper payments, which were later reinstalled, contributed to fuel shortages that forced the government to introduce a ban on fuel exports on Sept. 21. The ban has since been eased.

Russia’s oil and gas revenues declined in the January-November period by 23.3%, year-on-year, to 8.17 trillion roubles.
Russia’s energy revenues have been squeezed by Western sanctions that include price caps and an embargo on seaborne oil exports, and by the closure of the Nord Stream gas pipelines to Europe, which were blown up in September 2022. Investigators have yet to establish who was responsible for the blasts.

The finance ministry budgeted for a fall in oil and gas revenues of 23% this year to 8.86 trillion roubles, down from 11.59 trillion roubles in 2022.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Darya Korsunskaya, Editing by Gareth Jones)