MOSCOW: RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on international events, featuring reports on an increase in oil exports, collaboration between the authorities and Russian youth in improving conditions for NGOs, and an increase in foreign investment on the Russian market.
Federal Customs Service, that against falling oil prices, Russian crude exports have increased by nearly 10 percent (compared with the same period last year). Between January and June 2015, Russia exported 120,512 million tons of oil, the paper adds.
Russia has found itself among those who are pushing oil prices down. According to the customs statistics, revenues generated from Russian oil exports amounted to just $48.102 billion in the first six months of 2015, nearly 1.7 times less than last year, and the paper points out.
However, the newspaper writes, it is not only the state that appears to be interested in boosting oil exports against the falling prices – oil companies are, too.
“At the time of high oil prices, companies took out external loans to develop new oilfields,” a leading economist from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, Valery Mironov, told media explaining market players’ motivation.
“Now, when oil prices have plummeted, they are finding it far more difficult to find money to repay those loans. That is why they are trying to boost production and export, which in the end increases supply and demand imbalances on the world market.”
