The price of the Russian oil variety Urals increased by 26.6% in 2017, according to a news release on the website of the Russian Ministry of Finance on January 9, 2018.
In the period January 1 – December 31, 2017 the average price of this variety was $53.03 per barrel. Russia’s budget for 2017 was set at an oil price of about $40 per barrel.
Reason for this forecast was the trend of oil markets at the beginning of last year. An year earlier, the average price of the oil variety Urals was $41.90, according to agency statistics. In 2015, the average price of Russian oil reached $51.23 per barrel.
In the last months of last year, however, global oil prices went up. Urals’ average price in December, for example, has reached $63.61, the Ministry said. This is 22% more than the average price of Russian oil in December 2016.
Variety Urals is Russian oil for export and is a mixture of the raw material extracted in the Ural, which is high in sulfur and light Siberian oil. The sulfur content of this variety is high – about 1.3%, compared to 0.2-0.4% for the other major varieties on the market – European Brent and US light crude oil (WTI).
Urals oil is mainly traded on the Moscow Stock Exchange.