Russia Exceeds Adjusted OPEC+ Output Cap as July Revenues Rebound

Russia pumped about 9.13 million barrels of crude a day in July, according to people familiar with preliminary data, marginally exceeding the level implied by its OPEC+ commitments. Moscow’s formal quota for the month was 9.240 million barrels a day, but the government had also pledged an additional 137,000-barrel-a-day ‘compensation cut’ to make up for earlier overproduction, bringing the effective ceiling to roughly 9.10 million barrels. The slight over-run comes as the Kremlin faces conflicting pressures from the oil alliance to restrain supply and from the domestic budget to maximise revenues. Finance Ministry figures released Tuesday show federal income from oil and gas climbed to 787.3 billion rubles ($8.9 billion) in July, up sharply from 494.8 billion rubles in June. Nonetheless, oil-related tax receipts fell almost 33% from a year earlier to 710.4 billion rubles, reflecting lower global prices and a stronger ruble. Russia has pledged to submit detailed production data to the OPEC+ monitoring committee later this month. Any further deviation from its target could complicate the bloc’s efforts to keep global crude markets balanced after prices slipped below $80 a barrel in recent weeks.