Russia Needs Oil At Nearly $100 A Barrel To Balance The Budget
- 28.01.2026, 21:21
In January, Urals was sold abroad at $35-38 on average.
The price of oil, which would allow the government to cover all expenses with revenues and get a deficit-free budget, amounted to $93 per barrel by the end of 2025, analysts of Alfa Bank calculated.
The price of oil, which would balance the budget, increased by $4 in comparison with 2024, by $7 in comparison with 2023, and by $21 in comparison with pre-war 2021. As a result, the figure is close to the record levels of the early 2010s, when the budget needed a barrel price of about $100 or more to balance the budget, reports The Moscow Times.
In the late 2010s, the government made ends meet on a budget with oil at $49. The current levels of the balancing price suggest that the budget "remains highly sensitive to oil prices," Alfa Bank analysts wrote. For comparison: in the early 2000s, the budget needed only $18-25 per barrel for all collected taxes to cover all expenditures.
In the budget-2026, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation laid down the average price of a barrel of Urals at $59 and a deficit of 3.8 trillion rubles. At the end of last year, the hole in the treasury reached 5.7 trillion rubles, and in relative terms - 2.6% of GDP - set a record since 2020.
Oil and gas revenues fell 24% over the year (to 8.4 trillion rubles) along with the price of Russian oil, which collapsed below $40 per barrel at the end of the year after the introduction of U.S. sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil. In January, Urals was sold abroad at an average of $35-38, according to Bloomberg data. This is 1.7 times lower than the budget-2026 and 2.6 times lower than the level that balances the treasury.
The high oil price that balances the budget, combined with the accelerated growth of budget expenditures, suggests that the Finance Ministry may not be able to keep up with the program of raising debt to cover the deficit, Alfa Bank warns. According to the plan, the government intends to place government bonds worth 5.5 trillion rubles, and over three years - to increase debt by 15 trillion rubles.
Oil and gas revenues of the Russian budget in 2026 may be "far below" the planned level, warned Finance Vladimir Kolychev last week. He said the reason is Russian oil prices, which have so far "remained at a low level."
Reuters estimates that the Finance Ministry will collect 420 billion rubles in taxes on oil and gas in January - the minimum in more than 5 years and 46% less than in the same month a year earlier. According to Kolychev, the authorities intend to "compensate" for the falling commodity rent at the expense of the National Welfare Fund.