Interfax reported that the export duty for oil in Russia will fall by USD 3.8 to USD 393.7 per tonne on February 1st 2012.

Prime Minister Mr Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the new duty on January 25th 2012. The Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper published the decree on January 30th 2012.

The current export duty on oil is USD 397.5 per tonne. The average monitoring price from December 15th 2011 to January 14th 2012 was USD 108.22711 per barrel. Therefore, the Russian government is likely to establish the duty at USD 393.7 per tonne, based on a coefficient of 0.6.

If the coefficient had been kept at 0.65, the marginal duty rate would have been USD 424.1 per tonne starting on February 1st 2012. The discounted export duty will be set at USD 191.2 per tonne. As of January 1st 2012, it was USD 194.1 per tonne.

The duty for light and dark petroleum products, which was unified at 66% of the oil duty on October 1st 2011, will be USD 259.8 per tonne starting on February 1st 2012. As of January 1st 2012, it was USD 262.3 per tonne.

The export duty for gasoline, calculated on a coefficient of 0.90, will be USD 354.3 per tonne starting on February 1st 2012. As of January 1st 2012, it was USD 357.7 per tonne. The duty for liquefied gas will be USD 181.7 per tonne starting on February 1st 2012.

The Russian government approved a new scheme for calculating export duties for oil products effective October 1st 2011. According to it, the upper coefficient used in calculating oil duties was lowered to from 65% to 60%. Per this scheme, the export duty on dark oil products was increased from 47% to 66% of the duty on oil. The diesel fuel duty remained at 66% of that on oil, but the duties on all kinds of gasoline are 90%.

(Sourced from www.interfax.ru)