Russian federal bond auctions could resume in Sept but no decisions made, MinFin monitoring market - Siluanov
MOSCOW. Aug 24 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry plans to resume federal loan bond or OFZ auctions as the market stabilizes, possibly in September, if it is in the budget's interests, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters.
"We'll resume auctions as the market stabilizes, and the [borrowing] program in our budget this year will be fulfilled. And yes, it could be September. But again, we are monitoring the market closely, and we'll tap it when we decide it will be in the budget's interests," he said.
The MinFin said on July 20 that it was putting OFZ auctions on hold in order to stabilize the market situation. The ministry had earlier decided not to go ahead with OFZ auctions on June 24 and July 8 for the same reason.
The MinFin planned to borrow about 1.5 trillion rubles through OFZ placements this quarter on 14 auction days, including five in each of July and September and four in August. Just 9.1 billion rubles of bonds sold on one of the July days, on July 1. It offered floating rate bonds July 15 for the first time since November 2025 but no bids were received at acceptable prices.
The MinFin managed to borrow 2.865 trillion rubles with OFZ at market value after placing 3.252 trillion rubles at face value in the first half of 2026.
The domestic government borrowing program for 2026 provides for gross placements of 5.51 trillion rubles, redemptions of 1.337 trillion rubles and net borrowing of 4.173 trillion rubles.
The parameters of the Russian federal budget for 2026 will be adjusted, and the deficit will increase somewhat compared to the plan, but this will not entail a significant change in the amount of domestic borrowing, Siluanov said at the beginning of June.
Amendments were later adopted on specific aspects of budget execution in 2026, raising the ceiling for government borrowing over and above that set by the current budget law for domestic public debt and the domestic borrowing program.
