Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill to phase out Russia’s crude oil export duty by 2024, which is expected to increase export netbacks for oil producers. Another oil-related law introduces the so-called ‘negative excise duty’, or excise refund for refiners, aimed at stimulating refinery upgrades and higher light oil product output. At the beginning of June, Russia’s Finance and Energy Ministries said that they had agreed with the domestic oil companies to begin phasing out crude oil export duties by 5 percentage points annually over the next six years, from 30 percent now to zero as of 2024. The producers are happy about this: the duty—along with a so-called mineral resource tax based on production size—will be replaced by a profit-based tax that, oil companies say, will stimulate investments in oil production expansion. According to Platts, the phase-out of the oil export duty actually seeks […]