The export duty on Russian oil will probably fall to $108-$112 from $115.3 a tonne on April 1, a Finance Ministry official told Interfax.
"We're already pretty confident the duty will be lowered," said Alexander Sakovich, the ministry's deputy head of customs payments.
Sakovich said the price of Russian crude averaged at $41.92 a barrel for the period February 15 and March 9. "It would have to exceed $48 a barrel for the next four trading days [before the one-month observation period is up] for the [new] duty to be level with or higher than the existing one," he said.
Sakovich said market trends point to oil trading at $40-$45 in the next four days, in which case it would average $41.54-$42.54 a barrel for the whole observation period for February 15-March 14 and the duty will be $108-$112 a tonne.
The duty on light petroleum products will likely fall from $90 to $85-$88 a tonne, and that on dark products from $48.5 to $46-$47.5 a tonne.