Russia has earned at least 6 trillion rubles after signing an agreement with OPEC+ countries due to oil price cuts, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said.
The deal increased the cost of crude oil by $10 per barrel, he said. “We calculated it in a very conservative way - a $10 premium,” TASS cited the minister as saying.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Russian investment forum in Sochi, he noted that over the two years of the agreement with OPEC+, Russia earned at least an additional 6 trillion rules.
Head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev, in turn, said that without the OPEC+ deal the oil price would be at $30 per barrel.
Novak noted that, according to estimates, the current price would be about $40 or $50. He added that, in theory, in the period of low prices the oil price could reach $25 per barrel at the peak.
First Vice-Rector for International Cooperation and External Communications of Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, the founder and CEO of the national energy security Fund of Russia, Konstantin Simonov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that any estimates of benefits from the OPEC+ deal are conditional. “The reason is simple: we don’t know what oil prices could be if there were no transactions. The figures given by the minister are based on an analysis of the physical oil market. But it’s extremely important to take into account the psychological factors acting on the exchange,” he explained.
"Yes, the physical oil market is very important, and we understand that the deal really removed oil from the market, which was significant. But its value is not limited to influencing the output, it also psychologically affects market speculators. The fact is that there were other factors, in particular, Trump’s economic policy factor," Konstantin Simonov noted.
“Let me remind you that Trump not only began to lower the value of the American currency, but also proclaimed that green energy is nonsense, making a bet on traditional hydrocarbons. It would seem that the U.S. President promised support to his shale producers, but what is the best support for American shale companies? Expensive oil, because the cost of shale oil is very high. The market reacted and prices increased. In fact, the deal was significance, because it allowed the restart of the OPEC format, which was in serious crisis," the CEO of the national energy security Fund of Russia concluded.
