Russia is expected to pocket $337.5bn this year on energy exports alone, according to an economy ministry document seen by Reuters news agency.
Higher oil export volumes, coupled with rising petrol prices, will boost Russia’s earnings from energy exports to $337.5bn this year, a 38 percent rise from 2021, according to an economy ministry document seen by Reuters news agency.
The jump in revenues, if it materialises, will help shore up Russia’s economy in the face of waves of Western sanctions.
It will provide President Vladimir Putin with cash to fund military spending or to boost wages and pensions at a time when the economy has fallen into recession and inflation is eroding living standards.
But the boom in energy earnings only partly compensates for the damage from sanctions to the economy overall, analysts said.
“The impact of sanctions on Russia’s economy is very uneven. In some sectors, it has been catastrophic, such as the car industry. The oil sector is relatively unscathed for now,” said Janis Kluge, senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Besides autos, he cited IT and finance as two of the sectors worst hit. “These sectors have had the strongest links to the West and are consequently suffering the most,” Kluge noted.
The ministry document projects energy export earnings will ease to $255.8bn next year, still higher than the 2021 figure of $244.2bn, according to Reuters news.
The economy ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
The average petrol export price will more than double this year to $730 per 1,000 cubic meters, before gradually falling until the end of 2025, according to the forecast.
Petrol flows from Russia, Europe’s top supplier, are running at reduced levels this year after one route was shut when Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February, some European countries were cut off for refusing to pay for petrol in Russian roubles, and a dispute broke out over repairs to a turbine for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany.
