Follow the Money: Understanding Russia’s oil and gas revenues
Revenues from Russia’s oil and gas industry account for between 30 to 50 per cent of total federal budget revenues over the past decade, making them the most important single source of cash for the Kremlin. The Russian oil and gas sector contributes about 20 per cent of the country’s GDP on average, with wide fluctuations due to global price cyclicality and – more recently – to trade restrictions imposed by the West amid the conflict in Ukraine and Russia’s efforts to re-direct its oil and gas exports to new markets. With drastically reduced public information about the Russian energy sector, statistics on Russia’s budgetary revenues from oil and gas from Russia’s Ministry of Finance have become even more significant. Tracking the changes in value and the composition of the oil and gas state take is key to understanding and evaluating the state policies toward the sector and the overall state of Russia’s economy.
