TRENDS IN RUSSIA’S OIL AND GAS SECTOR DEVELOPMENT

In 2014, Russia continues to display upward trends in the oil extraction sector and petroleum product exports. In recent months, world prices of oil have been on the decline. Over the period of August–September 2014, the USA, the European Union and some other countries introduced economic sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas sector, which may potentially result in serious constraints on its future development. However, the actual negative eff ect of these sanctions will strongly depend on the length of the period of their realization. Should that period turn out to be short, the resulting negative eff ect will be rather limited; otherwise, oil output in this country may drop, thus bringing down government revenue.