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Russia needs added oil income tax to boost output — energy minister

The new tax, which is calculated on the basis of revenues and expenditures, is expected to be introduced only for relatively new deposits

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Oil prices unlikely to exceed $100 per barrel in near future - Russian finance ministry

MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. Russia needs to introduce a tax on additional income in the oil sector to boost the country’s crude production and oil reserves, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday.

“We need the quickest introduction of the added income tax,” Novak said at the national oil and gas forum.

The Energy Ministry’s new proposal aims to levy a tax on profit accruing over the entire period of oilfield development rather than on crude oil extraction. The profit is calculated as the difference between revenues and expenditures over the entire period of the development of oilfields.

The tax rate should increase with a growth in oil output and decrease with a fall in oil extraction.

The new tax, which is calculated on the basis of revenues and expenditures, is expected to be introduced only for relatively new deposits as it seems difficult to substantiate expenses on oil deposits that have been developed since the Soviet period.

The added income tax mechanism may be extended to Russia’s entire oil sector from 2018. Russia’s Energy Minister Novak earlier said the introduction of the new tax would help boost recoverable oil reserves by 4-5 billion tons. He said a pilot project was needed on a limited territory at the initial stage with a possibility of its subsequent wider use.

Russia’s Energy Ministry is considering nine oil deposits operated by Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft as pilot projects for the introduction of the new tax.

Russia’s energy minister said the ministry had already worked out the added income tax project and said he hoped it would be introduced until the end of 2014 so that pilot projects could be launched already from 2015.

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Oil & Gas Taxation Alexander Novak

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