Russia: western price caps on our oil exports are damaging the global economy

According to Russia’s energy minister, current Western price caps on its oil exports are harmful to the global economy. The main aim of introducing price caps instead of an embargo is to keep Russian oil flowing to the market while limiting the country’s revenues. US government officials recently said that Russian budget revenues from oil exports fell by half in the first half of this year. The Russian minister himself has also acknowledged the budget situation is strained.

Russian oil exporters have faced sanctions in the form of a price cap since the start of this year, agreed by the G7 countries and the EU at the end of last year. However, Russia’s energy minister Nikolai Shulginov told S&P Global that the caps are damaging the global economy. He also said that oil prices are currently high enough for Russia to reinvest some of its profits in developing production.