The average price of Russia’s Urals oil export blend hit its six-month low of $93.44 per barrel in June 2012, falling for the third consecutive month, Finance Ministry expert Alexander Sakovich said on Monday, referring to Argus and Platt data.
The average price of Russia’s Urals blend was $111.71 per barrel in June 2011.
In January-June 2012, the average Urals price was $112.06 per barrel or 3.6 percent higher than in the same period last year.
The average Urals price was $109.35 per barrel in 2011, registering a 40 percent growth in 2010 amid large-scale protests and riots that swept the Middle East and North Africa.
In early June, President Vladimir Putin signed amendments to the 2012 budget considerably increasing the projected oil price for this year to narrow the budget deficit, despite the continued fall in global oil prices.
The amendments were initiated in the spring of 2012 when the price of Russia’s Urals export crude blend hovered at the level of $115-120 per barrel, prompting the government to increase the projected average oil price for the year from $100 to $115 per barrel
Oil prices have nosedived in the past three months, sinking below the $100 per barrel level amid increased investor concerns about the slowing of the world economy caused by the flaring eurozone debt crisis and worsening macroeconomic data from the United States and China.
