Russian oil fell to $35 per barrel vs. global Brent price of $61 — discount exceeded 40%. Russia loses $90M daily, selling oil below production cost ($40/barrel) to obtain currency for purchases from China.
Russian oil has fallen to 35 dollars per barrel, while global Brent quotations stand at 61 dollars.
This means the discount exceeded 40%, or 26 dollars per barrel.
Russia exports 3.5 million barrels of oil per day and another 4 million in petroleum products.
The price drop primarily affects crude oil exports.
Russia's total financial losses thus already exceed 90 million dollars per day.
If we extrapolate this trend over a year (which in reality is unlikely), we get RF losses exceeding 30 billion dollars.
According to the Russian Ministry of Economic Development forecast, total Russian exports in 2025 will amount to 410 billion dollars.
That is, the hypothetical loss of RF oil exports on an annual basis represents less than 10% of total goods and services exports.
Incidentally, since the war began, RF has lost annual exports across all commodity groups totaling over 110 billion dollars per year (reduction in 2025 compared to 2022, meaning not the total sum of losses, which is higher).
I present these figures so you can clearly visualize the situation with Russian oil exports.
Note: 99% of analysts "discussing the topic" don't actually know the "technical details" and don't cite these figures.
What's important: 35 dollars per barrel is already below RF's average oil production cost.
Old Siberian fields — production cost 25 dollars, new ones — 15 to 20.
Arctic fields — above 60.
On average — 40 dollars per barrel.
This means RF is now selling oil at a loss to maintain market access and obtain currency (for purchasing imported equipment and components).
That is, they will sell even at 20 dollars, subsidizing the industry. Because they need currency (yuan) for new industrialization.
Incidentally, machinery, equipment and components are sold to them by China, and only for yuan.
If the pre-war structure of RF's economy had been preserved, where 55% of budget revenues came from the oil and gas sector — a budget collapse would have occurred.
But in 2026, the ratio between the oil-gas sector and non-oil-gas sector will be 22/78.
Structural transformation occurred during 2022–2025.
Conclusions: if the current situation is extrapolated to the entire 2026 fiscal year, RF will shift even more from crude oil exports to oil refining.
Lost oil revenues could expand RF's budget deficit from 2% to 3.5% of GDP, playing a pro-inflationary role by adding 1–1.5 percentage points to con
