(Source: http://scan-interfax.ru/Home)

Oil prices may fall “significantly below” $ 100 per barrel in 2015-2017, this sum being forecasted by the Ministry of Economic Development of the RF, the Deputy Finance Minister of Russia Aleksei Moiseev believes. He connects the possibility of oil prices reduction with the reducing influence of geopolitical risks.

“Oil prices forecasts worry us, we do not agree with the Ministry of Economic Development, we believe that oil prices are excessive. Now we see the beginning of supplies from Libya, we see the first signs of stabilization of the situation in Iraq” – Moiseev said in an interview to “Rossiya 24”. Earlier it was reported that the Ministry of Economic Development prepared an updated version of the forecast for 2014-2017, according to which the expected level of average oil price in 2014 grew from $ 104 to $ 105 per barrel, and the forecasted average oil price in 2015-2017 stayed at the level of $ 100 per barrel.

In May 2014 the Russian government has taken the so-called “basic” forecast scenario as the basis for the social and economic development of the Russian Federation and the projects of the federal budget for 2015-2017. The document designed by the Ministry implies the preservation of trends prevailing in the last period of the Russian economy, conservative investment policies of private companies and limited expenditures on the development of infrastructure sector companies alongside with the stagnation of government demand.

According to the basic scenario, the average price of Russian Urals oil should make up $ 104 per barrel in 2014 and $ 100 per barrel in 2015-2017. The pessimistic scenario assumed a new deterioration in the global economy accompanied by a fall in oil prices.

According to this scenario, the average price of Urals oil was to amount to $ 99 per barrel in 2014, $ 91 per barrel in 2015 and $ 90 per barrel in 2016-2017. Let us recall that the Russian federal budget for 2014 was prepared based on the oil price at $ 93 per barrel, while the budget for the 2015-2016 is planned based on the price $ 95 per barrel. The forecasted total revenues of the federal budget in 2014 are estimated at 14.238 trillion roubles, including additional oil and gas revenues - 1.567 trillion roubles.

The forecasted total revenues of the federal budget for 2015 are estimated at 14.565 trillion roubles, including additional oil and gas revenues - 384.9 billion roubles.