Russia may refuse to equalize revenues from energy exports and domestic sales

The task of equalizing energy supplies for domestic and foreign markets may be cancelled. At today's meeting with entrepreneurs within the 9th National Business Forum "Business Russia", Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that "at some point the equality slogan was absolutely right, because we had a huge distortion between actual gas prices in the market and the prices at which gas was supplied to domestic consumers. But at some point we have to stop and really understand the extent to which such equal profitability is the optimal intake of our market,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

The Prime Minister said that there must be some kind of competitive advantage. "It is precisely because we are Russia and, precisely because we are the largest provider of energy, and this balance has yet to be determined,” Medvedev said.

Initially, the Russian government planned to move in 2011 to the price of natural gas in the domestic market being equal to the export price, but, because of the global economic crisis, the transition has been postponed. January 1, 2015 has been designated as the new term, which was recorded in particular in agreements on the Common Economic Space (CES).

Meanwhile, last year Energy Minister Alexander Novak stated that the move to equal profitability of gas supplies to the domestic market and abroad may occur in 2017-2018. However, he noted that this can happen not only by increasing gas prices in the domestic market, but also due to lower export prices due to changes in the global market.