Oil and gas revenues of Russia’s federal budget fell to their lowest level since January in August, while the authorities are forced to spend hundreds of billions of rubles to support oil companies. The Moscow Times reports this, citing data from Russia’s Finance Ministry, UNN writes.
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In August, the Russian budget received 424 billion rubles in oil and gas taxes. This is 16% less than in August 2025 and 43% below the average for March–July, which amounted to 753 billion rubles.
One of the main reasons for the decline was oil. The average price of Russian Urals crude fell to $59.02 per barrel in August, compared with $86 in June and $94 in May. At the same time, oil production in Russia has decreased by 410,000 barrels per day since the beginning of the year, to 8.89 million.
Russian oil companies receive hundreds of billions from the budget
The consequences of drone strikes on Russian oil refineries added to the burden. According to the publication, at least seven plants halted production in August, and a record 21 strikes were carried out against oil-refining facilities throughout the month.
Against this backdrop, in August the Russian budget paid oil companies 304.6 billion rubles in subsidies. In total, from April through August, oil companies received 1.525 trillion rubles.
In the first eight months of 2026, oil and gas revenues of Russia’s budget amounted to 5.02 trillion rubles — 17% less than in the same period last year. Freedom Global analyst Volodymyr Chernov forecasts that by the end of the year they could amount to 7.5–8 trillion rubles instead of the planned 8.92 trillion, which would be the lowest figure since 2020.