Russian oil cos get 197.3 bln rubles of fuel damper payments in Aug - MinFin

MOSCOW. Sept 3 (Interfax) - Russian oil companies received 197.3 billion rubles in fuel damper payments from the budget in August, according to information on the formation and use of the federal budget's windfall oil and gas revenues, posted on the Finance Ministry's website.

In accordance with tax legislation, the fuel damper is paid for the previous month, meaning that payments remitted in August were for the month of July.

Oil companies got 113 billion in July for June.

Oil companies received 898.9 billion rubles for the first seven months of 2026, including the 33.8 billion rubles which they had to pay into the treasury for January and February combined. Taking into account payments made in January for December, the total amount received by oil companies under the damper was 915.8 billion rubles.

The damper has been in effect since 2019. It is paid out of the budget as a subsidy to oil companies to help keep domestic fuel prices stable when export netbacks are high. If there is a positive difference between the export price of fuel and the indicative domestic price set by legislation - meaning exporting becomes more profitable than supplying the domestic market - the government pays oil companies, and if the difference is negative, oil companies make payments to the budget.

As external factors worsened at the beginning of 2026 with a drop in oil prices and increase in the discount on Russian crude, oil companies paid 15 billion rubles to the treasury under the fuel damper in March for February and 18.8 billion rubles in February for January.

But the following month, the situation changed dramatically amid the conflict in the Middle East: global oil prices rose sharply due to short supply, while discounts on Russian crude narrowed, bringing the damper back to positive territory.