Temporary duties for oil companies can become constant

Less than two weeks have passed from the adoption of laws on growth of the tax burden for the oil and gas industry, and the Ministry of Energy for the first time officially acknowledged that the further exemptions might spread beyond the horizon of 2016. Despite the continued sharp fall in oil prices, as market participants feared, the decision to freeze the oil export duty and increase in the mineral extraction tax for Gazprom, which was presented by the Ministry of Finance as for one year, can touch at least 2017. According to analysts, as a result, the budget may additionally receive about 270 billion rubles per year.

Yesterday, the Deputy Minister of Energy Kirill Molodtsov said that the freezing of export duty on crude oil, because of which the oil companies will lose about 200 billion rubles in 2016, could be extended to the following years. And the deputy director of the Ministry’s Oil and Gas Department Andrei Tereshok, in turn, acknowledged that increase in the tax on gas extraction for Gazprom can also be extended.