MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Russia may raise oil export duty on its benchmark Urals blend by $40 from December 1 to $271-273 per metric ton from the current $231.2 per ton, a Finance Ministry official said on Wednesday.

Alexander Sakovich, head of the ministry’s consolidated analysis department, said the average price of Russian oil was $76.08 per barrel (about $558 per ton) from October 15 to November 10.
“If oil prices stay within the range of $75-78 per barrel in the remaining three trading days, the final monitoring price for the period will be $75.94-76.35 per barrel,” Sakovich said.
Therefore, under the formula of oil export duty calculation, the export oil duty may equal $271-273 per metric ton from December 1. In this case, duty on light petroleum products will rise to $195-196 per ton from the current $168.1 per ton, and duty on heavy petroleum products to $105-106 per metric ton from the current $90.5 per metric ton, he said.
On March 1, when global oil prices stabilized at $43 per barrel, export duty on Russian oil rose to $115.3 per ton. In April it fell to $110. In the subsequent months, the oil export duty rose after a rally on global oil markets but was lowered again from November 1.
Last year, the government abandoned its previously accepted bimonthly adjustments of export duties, and from December 1 switched to setting duties for oil and oil products on a monthly basis to respond more swiftly to changes in world oil prices. The duty is set by a formula based on the price of the Russian benchmark Urals blend.