Russia Says It Can Weather $25 Oil

[Texan77]

UBN.com reports that Gazprom is probably losing money. 

Poland’s state gas company PGNiG is in talks with Gazprom for a refund of $1.5 billion in overpayments to Russia, company chairman Jerzy Kwiecinski tells Tvp.info. The refund would comply with a March 30 Stockholm Arbitration decision, he says. Separately, Reuters reports from Moscow that Gazprom’s gas exports to Europe and Turkey fell by 19% in the first quarter y-o-y. Russia’s state gas export monopoly is believed to be losing money for first time in its 31 year history.

[Danchik]

Russia still has much left in its supplementary reserve fund that then chief economist Alexei Kudrin implemented during oil's heyday in the early to mid 2000's.

The time to give it a double take is if prices remain low for an extended period of time and they need to start dipping into the fund to balance the budget and certain cuts have to be made. Like any other government, the cuts will not benefit the little people.

There are two groups of economists/financial advisors that have Putin's ear. One old school Soviet in its leanings led by Glaseav/Belousov and the other more current Western leaning led by Kudrin/Nabuillina.

If things go south it could get interesting.