Crude oil price and Russian economy

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Russia is one of the three world’s largest oil producers, and the economy of the country is highly dependent on crude exports and, consequently, global crude oil prices. Last year the situation around oil prices got extremely acute as analysts’ predictions swung from $20 to $80 per barrel.

According to a publication in RT in January, experts at Goldman Sachs were expecting crude oil prices more than halve during 2016.

“The oil market is even more oversupplied than we had expected and we now forecast this surplus to persist in 2016 … the potential for oil prices to fall to such levels, which we estimate near $20/bbl, is becoming greater,” the US investment bank said in a research note in September.

In the beginning of the year Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev claimed that $40 per barrel was not a threat to the stability of the country’s economy, but it wouldn’t allow GDP, Russia’s oil production and consumer demand to turn positive.

During 2016 OPEC members have been taken measures to settle global oil prices. In the end of September they agreed to cut the total output level.