(vedomosti) -- Since the New Year, officials in the calculation of the oil duty stopped referring to the data from Platts and Argus, and began using the Reuters's data. Oil workers will have put out approximately USD400 million by the end of the year for this change.
Starting this year, Ministry of Economic Development must publish the price of oil Urals regularly, which is necessary for calculation of the export duty. Earlier in the official monitoring, there were used the data from agencies Platts and Argus, said a representative of Ministry of Economic Development. But the terms of the contracts with these agencies do not allow to publish the data on the Ministry website, explains the expert of the Ministry of Finance, Alexander Sakovich. So, since January, Ministry of Economic Development switched to the indices of Reuters.
Each agency has got its own method of calculation, Sakowich said: Argus's calculations are based on the spot deals per day, Platts also takes into account futures. Reuters's index deals with the value of closing trading session, which can be checked in Bloomberg. When volatility of the quotations is not significant, the difference in the data of Platts, Argus and Reuters is also small, says an analyst of Nomos Bank, Denis Borisov, but the differences used to increase when prices hike.
None of the three agencies gave comments to "Vedomosti".
Now the indices differ by more than $1, as per Sakovich calculations: the average value of Reuters last month made $123,3 per barrel, the Argus's - $122,7, the Platts's - $121,98. The April duty on the basis of these data was also different: Reuters - $460,6 per 1 tonne, compared with average Platts and Argus, which would be less by $2.6 and make $458.
If oil exports remain at the level of 17-18 million tonnes per month (in January, it was 17.8 million tonnes, in February - 16.2 million tonnes), an additional $2.6 from 1tonne will result in an increase of the tax burden by $45 million per month, Borisov has calculated. From April to December it will make about $400 million, which can be divided among companies as follows: "Rosneft"-$110 million, TNK-BP-$60 million, "Surgutneftegas"-$50 million, "Lukoil"-$45 million, "Tatneft"-$30 million, "Gazprom oil"-$25 million, others-$80 million.
Representatives of TNK-BP and "Lukoil" refused to comment, the rest are not available.
The switching to Reuters's data will cost about 7% of the tax savings that oil workers received from the transition to a system of taxation "60-66" (60% - the maximum coefficient in the formula for calculating duty on oil exports, 66%- a single rate of duty on the export of dark and light oil.)
MRC