Russia’s budget has received more than US$63.5 billion (4 trillion Russian rubles) in additional revenues thanks to the production cut deal between OPEC and non-OPEC nations led by Russia that boosted oil prices, Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said in an interview with Russian television channel NTV. “Thanks to the work of President Vladimir Putin with the King and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, relations are in a unique phase, and this gives a great boost to the budget. We believe that the Russian budget received an extra 4 trillion rubles thanks to this deal with Saudi Arabia,” Dmitriev said.
In February this year, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that due to the higher oil prices as a result of the OPEC-Russia pact, Russia’s federal budget had received so far US$27 billion (1.7 trillion rubles) more, while the oil companies received a combined US$11 billion (700 billion rubles) more since the beginning of 2017. In May, the Russian finance ministry said that due to the oil price rally, Russia expects its oil and gas revenues to jump fivefold compared to the expected revenues set in its 2018 budget. Oil and gas exports account for around 40 percent of Russia’s federal budget revenues.