OREANDA-NEWS  Oil production in Russia is starting to grow, in the first week of February, companies increased production by 0.7 percent relative to the average level in January. Volumes reached 1.491 million tons per day, which is slightly below the average daily level in February last year, before the start of the special operation in Ukraine, Kommersant writes.

The stability of production can be associated with large discounts on the sale of Russian oil, due to which it is possible to maintain large volumes of exports in physical terms, explained Sergey Kondratiev from the Institute of Energy and Finance. Last spring, sanctions forced companies to reduce production due to the refusal of European buyers from oil from Russia, but volumes began to go to Asian countries, mainly to India.

Now production continues to grow even under the conditions of the EU embargo on oil purchases by sea, which came into force on December 5, and Moscow's retaliatory measures providing for an export ban, subject to another system of restrictions — the price ceiling set at the same time as the embargo at $ 60 per barrel. At the same time, the price of the Russian Urals variety in January in any case decreased to 49.5 dollars per barrel - by 1.7 times year-on-year.

The situation forced the authorities to start discussing a change in the methodology for calculating prices for tax purposes. The main option is to completely abandon the use of the Urals quotation and switch to Brent quotations, taking into account the discount and freight cost set by the state. The idea is to encourage companies to trade oil at a price that is favorable for the budget: otherwise their taxes will increase.