Russia's problems: In January 2025, Russia almost recorded The lowest level of revenues from a year from sales oil. This is a relatively low effect prices raw material in the world and high withdrawals for domestic refineries. The amounts presented by the Bloomberg agency were calculated on the basis of production and prices in December 2024. The data does not show the influence of the latest sanctionswhich the US imposed on the Russian oil industry in January.
This is how oil and gas revenues have changed: In January 2025, the estimated total income from the sale of oil, fuels and natural gas was 789.1 billion rubles (approx. 8.14 billion dollars at the current course). For comparison, a year earlier it was 675.1 billion rubles (approx. $ 6.97 billion). On the other hand, Russia's tax revenues from oil 572.6 billion rublesi.e. approx. $ 5.91 billion (a year earlier it was 501.2 billion rublesi.e. approx. $ 5.17 billion). This is a clear decrease against March 2024 when the income exceeded the trillion of rubles.
Putin is looking for help in the shadow fleet: Russia's financial problems are reflected in its movements. In addition to diamonds, oil and gas are the most important source of income of the Vladimir Putin regime. And that he is starting to lack money, intensifies the use of “shadow fleet” – They inform independent websites. It is estimated that “shadow fleet” has about 600 tankers, which are registered in countries keeping commercial contacts with Russia. The analyst of energy raw materials markets Mikhail Krutichin believes that the stopping of the “shadow fleet” would severely damn Russia's war budget.
This is why the “shadow fleet” is effective: Krutichin explains that the “shadow fleet” avoids restrictions related to sanctions because Checking all tankers is time consuming and requires coordinated activities of many countries. – If you stop the unit in connection with sanctions, then you have to prove that the oil that it is conducting will be bought by brokers and will sell it by violating restrictions. There are no such technical possibilities to check all tankers like that. Such a hunt for a shadow fleet is a waste of time – emphasizes the Russian analyst. In his opinion, system solutions are needed to prevent breaking sanctions.
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Sources: BloombergIAR