RusEnergy

06-05-2009 - MosNews - World oil prices, currently around $65 a barrel, are inconvenient for Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin says. Russia needs oil prices to be at least $75 a barrel, Sechin was quoted by RIA Novosti as as telling the press Friday. Sechin said making forecasts about oil prices was an ungreatful task at the moment, since the market is totally unpredictable. But he noted that Russia did not plan to cut down on oil production in the next few years. According to Yulia Tseplayeva, the chief economist for Merrill Lynch in Moscow, for each $1 increase in the price of oil, Russia’s government budget earns about $1.7 billion a year. Yet in recent Russian history, the two periods of most intensive economic change — both of which were a condition for the boom of the past decade — were preceded by deep and prolonged slumps in oil prices.